Rewritten points in time
by Kammyh
Summary: The rift brings two unexpected guests at Torchwood, how will this change the future set for Jack, Ianto and the rest of the team? Janto CoE&EW fix-it/Alternative Timeline
1. Bad timed guests

**Disclaimer**: I do not own Torchwood and Doctor Who, no copyright infringement intended. If you still want to sue bring Ianto back to Jack first.

**Warnings**: So fix-it that it's actually more an Alternative Timeline, still everything gravitates around canon events. Set right before Reset, so spoilers for everything happened in the series after that (MD not included). Implied M-preg. Not beta-read and English's not my native language. Constructive criticism is appreciated.

**Bad timed guests**

Jack looked once again at the document in front of him, trying to make sense of the last case they were working on, when two strong hands grabbed firmly his shoulders and made him spin on his office chair. As he finished the180° turn and stared at the culprit, he found himself face to face with his worried lover.

"Jack, you've been too focused on this case, you should rest a bit. Those data won't delete themselves and even if they do, I have four spare copies of them. Take a break."

Jack smirked up at Ianto challengingly. "Oh? And since when do you feel allowed to give me orders?"

Ianto straightened himself and looked down at his boss, snorting calmly at him. "Since the day you named me your caretaker and manner of this hub. However, we're already afterhours, so technically speaking you're not my boss anymore, I'm free to do whatever I want with you."

"You're free to do whatever you want with me during working hours too, you know that. Besides, there's no such thing as afterhours in Torchwood." Jack argued, chuckling lightly and turning once again to his papers to reorder them and put them back into their folders. "Still you're right, I could use some distraction until Tosh and Owen are back from their trip to the forensics."

Ianto stared at him intently, measuring each and every movement Jack was doing and heartedly hoping that his lover meant what he was waiting to hear for the last three hours or so.

"So" Jack said as he turned his chair once again to face Ianto, making him focus automatically on his lewd grin and seductive eyes. "Are you willing to provide me some?"

In the fraction of second that followed, Ianto's lips were hungrily on Jack's, as the Welshman's mind literally screamed '_Yes_!', hearing exactly the proposition he wanted. His hands roamed all over Jack's chest, eventually climbing up to reach his shoulders and neck, only to move up once again and cup his face tenderly.

Jack, on the other hand, simply let Ianto's possessive touch soothe and relax him, meeting his lover's lips and tongue with his own and letting the younger man take the lead. Slowly, he found himself perched up his own desk as Ianto's hands left his jaw to start fumbling with his clothes. It was certainly the right time to start doing something he himself, even though he kind of liked the idea of letting Ianto completely take advantage of him: the man was inventive almost as much as he was.

Not trying to break the kiss even for the slightest time, both lovers tugged desperately at each other's shirt, Ianto having the worse of it, as his mind was too further ahead than his current task because of the mind-blowing kiss he was trying to control without much success. Jack let a small smirk cross his lips as he successfully let Ianto's shirt fall on the floor before his lover could even finish undoing the buttons of his.

Taking pity on him, Jack broke the kiss and slowly dedicated himself to trace Ianto's jaw with tiny bites and hungry kisses, hoping to be less distracting and leave his lover free to focus back on his mission. Unfortunately, the change in actions didn't help the Welshman at all, as he eventually hid his face in the crook of Jack's neck and relaxed in his tender embrace, lost in the sensation.

Even like that, eventually he managed to undo the last button of Jack's shirt… right when the rift monitoring program yelled it danger signal along with the proximity alarms, urging them to stop fooling around and to focus back on the work they were supposed to do.

Both of them groaned in disappointment, but quickly gave their attention back to Jack's computer to see what had happened and where. After a couple of quick inputs, finally the coordinates of the spike appeared on screen, leaving both of them astonished.

"Ianto?" Jack asked, just to be sure he wasn't hallucinating.

"It happened inside our hub" Ianto confirmed worried.

"You stay here. Check our CCTV and see in which area the inside alarm went off or if the cameras show anything suspicious. Use this computer, I don't want you out of this office for any reasons at all" Jack ordered, quickly buttoning up his shirt and fixing his braces. "If you find something, tell me via comm"

"Jack, it might be dangerous!" Ianto argued, recovering his shirt from the floor as he tried to reach Jack before he stepped outside the office.

"This is why I need you to have my back" Jack stated with a wink, but seriously enough to make Ianto stop and stare at him. "Check the CCTV and stay alert, I count on it"

That said, Jack headed for the main area of the hub, whilst Ianto simply stared at the empty air before muttering a soft and resigned "Yes, sir" as he went back to the computer.

After checking every camera they owned and waiting about half an hour without hearing any kind of news from Jack though, Ianto began getting restless. The alarms that had kept echoing in their base had eventually died down, so theoretically speaking the situation had been dealt with. What worried him to no end though, was Jack keeping him in the dark.

He tried to get to his lover through his comm, then he used his mobile, but no answer came from both. After another rapid check among their security system registrations, he could only hope that wherever Jack was it was in the cameras dead spot.

"Jack?! Are you still here?!" Ianto yelled eventually, standing barely a step outside the office door. "Jack?!"

Exasperated by the weirdness of the situation, he eventually rushed outside, his steps on the metal grates sounding too loudly in his ears as panic won over his most sensible instinct.

"JACK?!" Ianto shouted again, searching everywhere with his eyes until he finally noticed the tip of Jack's shoes appearing from behind the water tower. "JACK! Why the hell aren't you answering!?"

He ran in that direction, still undecided whether to be more worried or angrier for Jack's lack of communication. He could only hope that the worst didn't happen.

As soon as he reached him though, Ianto could only feel drained of both those feelings as surprise overwhelmed him and he gaped at the scene in front of his eyes.

Jack was currently kneeling on the cold floor, holding in his arms what seemed, in Ianto's eyes, a newborn baby soundly asleep. He was rocking it lightly, holding it delicately to himself like he wanted to screen it from all the loud sounds inside the room. Like the picture of the perfect father.

Ianto didn't know what to think about it, but he was quite sure that a tiny part of himself felt extremely guilty. Whether he felt guilty over interrupting the nice family portrait or for other reasons, he didn't _want_ to know.

"Jack?"

"Shhh" Jack murmured, still looking at the baby in his arms, but most likely speaking to Ianto too. "All those bad alarms were enough noise for you, little one, weren't they? I found her crying in panic and she stopped only when silence reigned again, I didn't want to push it"

"I heard nothing"

"The sirens were covering the noise, Ianto, I wouldn't have heard Janet growling even if I were with her in the vaults"

Ianto crossed his arms on his chest and showed his displeasure at his lover anyway.

"I was worried about you, you could have told me what was going on through the comm" He protested, speaking softly and joining Jack behind the water tower. "Was it the reason why the proximity alarms went off with the rift monitoring program ones?"

"Yeah. Look at her, isn't she adorable? No more than a few weeks old I would guess"

Ianto took a good and distrustful look at the baby, but he had to admit that the infant really was something that could make his heart melt. He felt himself smile at her despite his better judgement, and eventually closed up the few inches left between himself and his lover. He rest his chin on Jack's shoulder to admire her from his same point of view, and let himself wonder about how much he had given up refusing to be part of the life of his sister's children.

"I bet she made her parents proud, it bet Tosh and Gwen would love spoiling her to death." Ianto told Jack, still in awe. "How do we send her back?"

He felt more than heard Jack inhaling deeply. "We can't. If things were different, this would just be another re-adaptation case, like with Diane and the others, but as a matter of fact we don't even know what she is."

"She seems human to me"

"Ianto, believe me, there's a great difference between _appearing_ human and _being_ human. We'll need Owen to check her up and then maybe wait a bit… Hope she's from a future in which her parents can track her signal and bring her back home, because if nothing comes in a short time, our only option is to set her up for adoption."

"Jack… She _must_ have parents out there" Ianto said, his heart sinking in his chest. "C'mon, what if she was your baby? Wouldn't you like someone to help you finding her? There must be something we can do to contact them. Besides, does a future that allows tracking someone through time and space like that even exists?"

Jack's eyes didn't left the small baby in his arms as he traced her plump check with the back of his index finger.

"If it exists, it would be after the 51st century. It would be impossible do that even for our technology"

Ianto held Jack tight from behind, realising the actual message behind his lover's words: he himself had no idea if it would ever be possible for them to give the child back to her family.

"There must be another way around it"

"Only one person might have a chance here…" Jack muttered, almost to himself.

"She might _really_ be your child, you know?" Ianto wondered aloud, hoping to change the topic and lighten the mood a bit. "You would still be alive years in the future and she _does_ look a bit like you."

"What?"

"Yeah, look at her. She frowns in disappointment just like you, and I bet that she could even pout like a champion with a little mouth like that. You might have competition in getting what you want from now on if she stays."

Jack laughed at the joke and relaxed in his lover's arms, reaching behind himself to steal a quick kiss on Ianto's cheek.

"Oh, really? Then what about her little button nose? It's just like yours" Jack's mood somewhat sobered as he stared deeply into Ianto's blue eyes. "You're young, you still have time to have children of yours."

Ianto allowed himself a smile and took a long sniff of his lover's pheromones, noticing the lingering smell of newborn baby mixing with it.

"My life plans don't include children at the moment, even though looking at this little bundle of joy really makes you reconsider…"

He reached for her cheek to caress it with the back of his hand, but, as soon as he touched the child's skin, Jack quickly escaped his embrace.

"What?"

"Didn't you hear it?"

"Hear what?"

"A _click_"

"I heard nothing, Jack"

As they stared speechless at one another, a well known noise echoed inside the hub, making their eyes widen in surprise. Jack, preventively shut his mouth tight and looked around himself to see where the source of the noise was and what he could do to hide _Him_ from Ianto.

The Welshman, on the other hand, had no such qualms. "The T.A.R.D.I.S.?" He asked mildly surprised.

Jack turned swiftly to stare shocked at him, but Ianto simply smirked knowingly at his lover and shook his head at the man's naiveté. The captain frowned back at him and tightened unconsciously his hold on the baby as he still failed to see the Doctor's blue box.

All of sudden, the noise stopped and Ianto quickly stood right in front of Jack protectively, staring at the hothouse worried.

"I bet he's in there"

Jack had no time to ask what might have given the Doctor's presence there away, that a desperate thin man with a bowtie run out of the conservatory, staring at them with accusing eyes.

"Don't you dare touch that baby!"

"I guess you're a bit late for that…" Jack complained with a snort, before surprise settled in and he raised an eyebrow at the newcomer. "Doctor?"

"Yeah, but that's beside the point" The Doctor stated, striding down the stairs and through the main area. "I meant you as in _you two_."

"You two as in… a couple?" Ianto asked interested, earning Jack's reproachful eyes on him.

"You two as in _you,_" The Doctor explained pointing his finger towards Jack "the hopefully fixed point in my headache, and _you_," he continued, this time pointing it towards Ianto "the one who's currently the main reason for giving me one"

"We… are we going to meet again in the future? Again aside this precise moment I mean"

"Actually we were never supposed to meet"

"Then how can you say I'm giving you headaches?" Ianto pointed out, unmoved by the Doctor's bitter drama.

"Look, here the safety of the space continuum depends on a _click_ and everything is you fault so…"

"A _click_?" Jack interrupted their bickering incredulous.

"A _click_" The Doctor confirmed significantly.

"He heard a _click_"

The Doctor's attention flew back to Ianto. "Who heard a _click_?"

"_I_ heard a _click_" Jack clarified, earning the Time Lord's eyes back on him.

"Was it a click _click_ or a not quite _click_ or a-?"

"Yes, Doc, it was a _click_ kind of click, still I was the only one hearing it, so maybe I was only hallucinating."

"Did you two touch the kid together?"

Jack and Ianto felt suddenly guilty for no reason at all and both swallowed hard before they answered together with a feeble "Yes"

"You see? That's why _he_ gives me headaches!" The Doctor told them angrily, slapping his knees in hysterics. "God, he _click_-tricked me!"

Looking at the scene the Doctor was causing, Jack and Ianto didn't feel much guilty anymore, even though the slight hint of worry was still there.

"What's the problem with the _click_?" Ianto asked annoyed, eventually moving closer to Jack, as it seemed unlikely that the Doctor wanted to take his lover away again.

"I already told you, the safe of the space continuum!"

"How?" Jack demanded, vaguely distracted by the baby in his arms trying to grab his braces but not quite succeeding in the act.

"Isn't it obvious? Because of that horrible baby!"

Jack and Ianto's eyes stared back at him, widened in shock.

"What's wrong with this child? Besides, she's all but horrible" Ianto argued, completely horrified by the Doctor's rudeness.

"Oh, what would you call something that might destroy the points around which time revolves?"

"Some_one_" Jack pointed out warily. "And all of this thanks to a single infant… Look, I think you should take it out on her parents or whoever brought her here, if you're right, and not on her. Babies are always innocent"

"Well, now. It's exactly what I'm doing at the moment"

"What?" Jack and Ianto asked together, and the Doctor simply sighed loudly, sitting on the nearest chair and burying his head in his hands. He really didn't feel like storytelling at the moment.

"I went two thousand years in the future" He drawled in a tired monotone. "And I found Jack still moping about your death-"

"Wait," Ianto interrupted "you said-"

"Yes, two thousand years in the future he was still thinking about you. And it's not romantic, it's plainly weird. And wrong." The Doctor registered the uncomfortable shift in the two humans who barely glanced at each other before turning their attention on him again. "So I decided to bring Jack to a crack in the void, so that thanks to the T.A.R.D.I.S. energy you two could meet a last time. It was supposed to be something quick, to make Jack realise that maybe he had romanticized too much over his lost boyfriend, but…"

"But?" Jack asked uncertain, earning the alien's glare on him.

"But _you_ closed the two of you inside a temporal bubble, so that you could stay longer together. 7 seconds passed for me, so I guess that for you they were 7 years at least. And" The Doctor continued glaring at them both. "You came out with that kid and, not happy with just that, you sent her back in time! Now there's a fixed point in the future more fixed than the others thanks to the T.A.R.D.I.S. energy and it being in the future, an event happening _two thousand years from now_ where he is still _alive_ and you two had _that kid_! It will rewrite everything in the middle, also other fixed points in time! Do you realise what you did?"

"Technically speaking I did nothing!" Ianto protested, clenching his fists in anger. "And besides that, what has me touching the baby along with Jack to do with all of this!?"

"Genetic recognition" The Doctor explained. "_That_ Ianto was momentarily alive, but temporally still dead, _you_'re not."

"I still don't get what's so bad about all of this and why I'm the bad guy here. Jack trapped us in a time loop, so what has this to do with me?"

"I don't really think Jack would be so keen with the consequences of sending the child back to rewrite history"

"What consequences?"

"You becoming immortal" Jack said with a voice so weak and uncertain that Ianto had to stare back at him to convince himself that it had really been his lover the one speaking. "You will need to be immortal to have a kid with me two thousand years in the future. Time now has to accommodate that and the baby's age"

"Make it more like the children's, because you will have at least one more." The Doctor snapped at them and got up, reaching for their heads to share his memory with them.

_Jack and Ianto's surroundings began to fade, becoming what Jack could guess it was the new interiors of the T.A.R.D.I.S. They had just a vague perception of themselves, like they were separated ghosts inhabiting the same body, a body that functioned by itself and that they couldn't influence whatsoever._

_At the moment they were looking frantically around the space in a frenzy and they could heard themselves speak with the Doctor's voice"Damn, he tricked me!"_

_Jack and Ianto, living the Doctor's memories, had no time to swear further than that, as a white light exploded inside the TARDIS and they found themselves face to face with who could be no other than their future selves. _

_Ianto swallowed thickly as he couldn't refrain to notice how he wasn't much older than he was now. Apparently Jack noticed the same thing, because even though they were still seeing and feeling things from the Doctor's point of view, Ianto could also perceive his lover's hand searching for his shoulder and for comfort._

_Ianto followed the feeling of it, and could actually touch the outlines of Jack's hand and follow them to reach his lover's back. He instinctively tugged him in his arms, eerily mimicking the scene playing in front of them. The only real difference between them and their future-selves was that the other Ianto was the one holding the small girl tightly to his chest, whilst the other Jack held in his arms a little boy, no older than four years old._

"_What the hell have you done!" They heard themselves yell, once again with the Doctor's enraged voice. "Jack, I trusted you!"_

"_I'm sorry, Doctor" Jack told him, looking completely subdued as he cradled his son's head close to his chest. "I'm sorry, I-I couldn't-"_

"_Doctor" Ianto called out, his eyes almost blazing with determination. "There's no other choice"_

_The Doctor had no time to ask Ianto what he was referring to, that the Welshman let his Jack go, took out from his pocket a small device and put it on the sleeping baby in his arms. They didn't know what it was, but the Time Lord recognized it immediately._

"_How did you managed to have something like that!? You were inside a loop!"_

"_We used our time well" Ianto said, and with a trembling hand he reached for the tiny switch on the tool to activate it._

"_Ian?"_

_Jack's and Ianto's eyes met for a fraction, but the captain's distraught expression only gave Ianto back the courage he was lacking at the moment._

"_There really is no other choice" He whispered, almost trying to convince himself more than the others, then he switched the device on and, in front of her parents' panicked eyes, the baby disappeared from Ianto's arms, engulfed by shining golden dust. The Welshman's face blanched at his own action and he after failing to steady his breath a couple of times he burst in hysterical tears, soon comforted by Jack's warm embrace as the vision began fading into the darkness along with the Doctor screaming at them about the consequences of their act._

Words and yells eventually died away in a confused background noise, while all around Jack and Ianto the familiar surroundings of the hub rematerialized themselves.

Ianto instinctively tried to tighten his arms around Jack, but his captain escaped from his embrace hastily and glared at him, obviously shaken by what he had just seen.

"Take the girl Ianto" He ordered, barely containing his anger. Ianto could do nothing but obey, even though he tried to reach for his lover's shoulder all the same as soon as the baby was safely nestled in his arms.

"Jack, listen-"

"I don't want to talk to you at the moment" Jack snapped, and then his glare moved to the child and the Doctor too. "I don't want to see _any_ of you at the moment actually."

He stormed back to his office and closed the door with a loud slam, managing to not shatter the glass door, but to break Ianto's heart anyway.

"Jack…"

"You dag your own grave" The Doctor commented drily, seeing Ianto's distraught expression. It didn't take Tosh's genius to understand that, despite the anger, the alien was actually feeling quite sad about them fighting.

"_I_ did nothing, actually" Ianto managed to say, successfully keeping a blank expression on his face.

"Well, while you have your own mental breakdown, I'll go and park my T.A.R.D.I.S. downstairs, where it's safer. I have the feeling that we'll be here together quite some time."

As soon as the Doctor disappeared inside the hothouse and his blue box vanished into thin air with his characteristic noise, Ianto let his mask fall, allowing himself to fall on the nearest chair and simply try not to cry.

He could only hope to wake up from this dread and find weevils, aliens and dark artefacts all together endangering the safety of the universe. _That_ he could survive, but breaking up with his lover and becoming a father all within the same couple of hours was too much for him to bear, no matter what Torchwood had taught him to endure.

**TBC**


	2. When everything ends

**Disclaimer**: I do not own Torchwood and Doctor Who, no copyright infringement intended. If you still want to sue bring Ianto back to Jack first.

**Warnings**: So fix it that it's actually more an Alternative Timeline, still everything gravitates around canon events. Set right before Reset, so spoilers for everything happened in the series after that (MD not included). Not beta-read and English's not my native language. Constructive criticism is appreciated.

**When everything ends**

Owen and Tosh entered the hub, fighting over who had to sacrifice for the other and tell Jack that they had found basically nothing at the forensics. Worse than that, they didn't even manage to bring back the corpse they had been allowed to inspect for further analysis.

As soon as Owen got a glimpse of Ianto sitting at one of the computers though, his eyes lightened, feeling ready to crack a dry joke at their co-worker's expenses.

"Oi, tea boy! Could you go and sweeten up our boss a bit? Use your mouth for a good cause, will you? I don't want my ass eaten off again."

"Owen!" Toshiko reprimanded him, disgusted by his bluntness.

"What? Everyone knows he's sleeping with the boss, why can't I get something useful out of it too?"

Toshiko scoffed and went straight to Ianto to check the damages. She put a kind hand on his shoulder, but froze upon seeing what the Welshman was cradling in his arms, his red eyes and his distraught expression.

"Oh, my God, where does she come from!? What happened?"

"You've better leave Jack alone" Ianto told them plainly, ignoring her questions altogether. His eyes never left the child in his arms even for a moment. "He's not up to chatting right now"

"Ianto, you… You two didn't break up, did you?"

Toshiko's question managed to earn a snarl form the usually nice and proper Ianto Jones.

"You must be together to break up" He quipped, his fake composure already giving in. "His Doctor is around though, even if I don't know where they both are at the moment."

"You don't know something about the hub?" Owen interjected, eventually getting near to his teammate enough to notice he himself the awkwardness of the young Welshman's situation. "Quite unusual, tea boy"

Toshiko glared at Owen once again, but Ianto had no strength to do the same and simply sighed aloud.

"I had to go away for some time, we had nothing for babies here. Not even a drop of milk. She was bound to get hungry or to need a change sooner or later." A small smile formed on his lips as he regarded the baby currently stretching in his arms. "You had everything you wanted when you needed it though, yeah little girl?"

"It's a girl?" Toshiko chimed happily, dropping unceremoniously her weight on Ianto's shoulders to poke her cheek in awe. "How cute…"

"Yeah, Tosh, the rascal is a sweet-drop" Owen noted annoyed. "But don't you think it's time to ask Ianto why he is playing mother hen? Where does the tot come from?"

Ianto inhaled deeply: Owen's rants were really giving him a headache… He was almost about to consider some wild revenge at the doctor's expenses.

"She's apparently mine and Jack's. From two thousand years in the future. How will I get there to make Jack conceive at the moment is anyone's guess and the reason why he's furious."

"You have his Doctor here you said! Ask him!"

"That's the problem, he doesn't know" Ianto snapped, eventually losing his patience. "The universe could implode or rewrite itself… for the moment time travelling it's not even safe since the supposedly fixed points in our future are resetting themselves."

"Wait, what has this to with the little girl?" Owen asked, sparing Ianto the dry remark he meant to throw at him out of pity and self-preservation.

"Me touching her being 100% alive set the rewriting in motion it seems." Ianto drawled, trying to show through his manners how dim-witted the Doctor's explanation had been.

"And Jack is angry at you… because?"

"Jack and I apparently cheated the Doctor to have her, her brother and some more time together… Now Jack thinks that something so absurd like him causing temporal disasters for me could have a chance to happen only if I betrayed him. God only knows why."

"Ianto!" Jack's voice echoed through the whole hub from his office, making the Welshman feel two inches tall. "You already said enough!"

Jack retreated back inside his office and Ianto followed his movements with his eyes, wishing to have the courage to follow him and finally talk with him.

"Go after him" Toshiko whispered, taking the baby from his arms and urging him to stand up. "C'mon, go!"

"Yeah, tea-boy, I need that favour from you, so I'll- Oww! Tosh!" Owen glared at Toshiko, who answered with an equally irate glare of her own. The doctor eventually let his eyes stare at the floor and massaged the back of his head where she had hit him, and gave up on the cruel joke he meant to state. "Go sweeten up the boss, Ianto, before I ask for more coffee"

Ianto, finally feeling a little more reassured, let a small smile grace his lips and nodded at them, before hurrying though the hub to disappear inside Jack's office.

There, he found his lover sitting sluggishly on the chair at his desk, his legs on one another on the table and staring accusingly in his direction, as he was expecting Ianto to disobey and try to get him.

"Jack, I-"

"I thought I said I didn't want to see you" Jack interrupted him brusquely.

"I just wanted to say I'm sorry" Ianto almost whispered into the thin air, his eyes staring down at his feet.

"For what? Tricking me again?" Jack said angrily, shifting to sit once again properly on his chair. "You know, I thought I was already used to your treachery."

Jack's words pierced through his heart like arrows, but Ianto wasn't going to let it get though him. Not on the outside a least. "Jack, I can't know what I really did in the future, but I don't think I would have tricked you. And _I_ most certainly didn't do it now."

"You saw that scene… _That_ wasn't me…"

"We've just the present, Jack! You can't know how it turned out like that in the future for sure, and if the Doctor is right, you will never know"

"Yeah, and whose fault is that!?" Jack leashed out, standing up abruptly. "You will only get a different future, I am the one who's getting rewritten! I'm a fixed point in time too!"

"What if you're getting rewritten for the best? What if you knew the consequences, but decided to take the chance anyway!?"

"I- We can't know that…"

"Exactly!"

"But I know that under no condition at all I would condemn you to immortality! Because this is what it will turn out to be to allow each piece to match together! There's no other choic-" Jack stopped in middle sentence as he fell on the floor, clenching desperately his head with his hands.

Ianto for a moment felt blood freeze in his veins as he stared at the sudden change of scene in front of him.

Then, a loud, pained cry escaped Jack's mouth, echoing in the whole room, somehow waking him up from his shock.

"JACK!?" Ianto hurried towards his lover to hold him tight in his arms. After the first attempts to get free from his grip, Jack gave in and docilely retreated in his lover's safe embrace, whining as the pain in his head became stronger and images he didn't want to see began appearing in front of his eyes without being able to stop them.

_He felt naked and dirty and traumatized, but in front of him stood Ianto, in the worse shape he could remember him dressing in and with a weird yellow helmet on his head. Next to him were Gwen and Rhys. They all were staring at him, apparently relieved to see him again. _

_For what reason he didn't know. _

_The only thing he knew was that not much could make him stop staring at Ianto, who had apparently done everything he could to bring him back from whatever had separated them._

The vision faded as soon as he tried to approach his lover and friends, followed soon by a reprise of the pain he had felt before, just increased to a higher level. An even sharper stab crossed his brain, and the warm hands soothing him suddenly became too distant and cold.

_He sat in front of a computer now, one he couldn't recognize as his even though he was using it to access Torchwood servers. Ianto was at his side, trying to work on another foreign laptop and failing miserably at it: they were chatting about something and Jack couldn't miss how Ianto's mind was all but set on the work they were supposed to be doing. He obviously was in the very same set of mind, since their talk had been lately filled with plenty of flirty allusions._

"_What about now?" Ianto told him eventually, and Jack understood immediately the proposition lingering beneath those words. He shifted uncomfortably on his chair and tried to make the boss side of him prevail, something that was increasingly becoming difficult for him to do whenever Ianto was around._

"_Ianto, the world might be ending" He managed, sounding unsure even to his ears. _

"_The world is always ending" Ianto told him, with a voice so soft that Jack could feel his heart melt in his chest. As much as the desire to be closer to his lover kept growing exponentially, the warmth filling his insides at the moment felt even more pleasant that the promise of 30 wicked minutes of heated sex._

_They stared at one another for a few moments more and Jack eventually lost the remains of his determination, charmed by Ianto's honest and affectionate smile. He turned a bit so that someone behind him could hear him better, but his eyes never left Ianto for more than few instants. It was just like his eyes were glued to Ianto by that warm feeling, a feeling way different from the usual mind blowing lust that habitually crossed his body after being propositioned by his lover._

_As the vision faded once again, Jack, for some reasons, had the distinct sensation that they never actually got to make love after that. _

_Ever again._

"Jack! Jack please! Owen, HELP!" Ianto screamed, pulling Jack out of his reverie for a small while.

He was doing his best to not let the worry for his lover cloud his mind too much, in order to not become an hindrance once the doctor would come, but the continuous tossing and turning and crying of Jack in his arms wasn't helping his composure at all.

Owen and Toshiko eventually rushed through the office door: he knelt next to Jack, whilst she stayed behind, trying to soothe the crying baby in her arms.

"What the fuck have you done to him tea-boy!?" Owen snapped at Ianto, as he fumbled with the first aid kit he had brought with him to get a syringe.

"I-I did nothing… We… He…"

It didn't take much to Owen to understand that Ianto, despite his better efforts, was in utter panic. "Ianto, now calm down now for god's sake! He's going to be fine, trust me!"

Ianto swallowed and nodded, even though Owen knew too well that both Jack and Ianto were far from fine.

"Try to keep him still, I don't need him to snap the needle moving too much"

"What's that?" Ianto asked uncertain, eying the syringe suspiciously and tightening automatically his hold on his lover.

"Don't worry, just sedative… Keep him still!"

Ianto nodded despite not trusting Owen as much as he was supposed to, and tried to calm down Jack, who was still unconsciously lost in his nightmare. Deciding to forego all his fears about being outed so openly, he caressed tenderly his hair, following the damp contour of his temple down to his cheek too. "Shhh, Jack, everything will be fine, I swear it you. Shhh…"

Jack whimpered in pain, but felt slightly less tensed in Ianto's arms, so the Welshman took his chance to leave a small kiss on his forehead too, audience be damned. That was something Jack liked, and with him suffering like this, probably because of him, his loss of dignity was something absolutely irrelevant.

Before Owen could get his chance to sedate him though, Jack tensed again, crying his lungs out and clutching Ianto's shirt for dear life.

_Around him, his surroundings became hazy again, and he found himself in a blurred environment that looked somewhat like a warehouse._

"_I only scraped the surface, didn't I?"Ianto's betrayed voice reached his ears, leaving Jack to feel bad, ashamed, wounded and completely inadequate. _

_He could see in Ianto's eyes how much pain he had caused him, how much he had broken his heart this time. No matter what he had said or done, it looked like he had betrayed his trust royally this time. _

_Jack felt himself trying to keep the upper lead of the situation, but he was already falling victim of his own guilt, a guilt so deep that made somehow feel him and Ianto as distant as they hadn't been for a very long time._

_When he felt himself giving up and try to get Ianto to put things clear once again, something happened and _then the vision faded for the third time, only to start again in a different setting.

_They were in front of a blue tank, and Ianto was falling on the floor, Jack's arms failing to support him, since his own legs were becoming any time weaker. His vision was blurred and he could barely hear what Ianto was telling him or what he himself was saying back, but there was no way to misinterpret the situation._

_His Ianto was dying._

_Jack's heart shattered in pieces, along with the scene playing in front of his eyes like a movie with a broken film._

* * *

><p>"<em>Please, stay with me…"<em>

* * *

><p>"<em>I love you"<em>

* * *

><p>"<em>Don't-"<em>

* * *

><p><em>Then felt Ianto's cold lips under his, unmoving, and then the cruel Death unkindly bringing him back into the cold darkness along with the man he loved. There was no way to fool himself: he would re-emerge from death alone. Like always. Like he would always do for the following millennia.<em>

Jack cried once again for the pain he was feeling, but this time it wasn't just something physical, it was the wound in his heart that hurt so much that he could barely contain it. Tears streamed down his cheeks and he felt suddenly drained from all his energy.

Then a cold needle pierced his skin and unconsciousness finally took him.

Ianto stared at Jack for a long time, his eyes wide with horror at what his lover had to endure. Was he really the cause of this? Had he known that rewriting Jack would have caused him all this pain?

Who was the monster among them, if he had really chose this fate for Jack out of his own egoism?

"Ianto? Shake yourself off, mate, he'll be fine."

Ianto's eyes moved to Owen and the doctor gulped at the panicked expression on his face. "Look, bring him down to his bunker, let him sleep it off. I bet he will be fine… No, I _know_ he will be"

"What if he isn't? What if this keeps going on again after he wakes up!?"

"Rewriting time is a slow procedure" A serious voice came from the next to the glass door. "Whatever he saw, it doesn't exist anymore. It won't exist"

The Doctor stared down at Jack, pain showing though his eyes despite his will.

"You don't seem effected." Owen stated as a matter of fact, ignoring his mixed feelings about the man that had took his captain away from them for too many months.

"I'm not a fixed point in time. On the other hand the same pain experimented by Jack now is currently wounding the time itself. My T.A.R.D.I.S. itself. It's not something I particularly like."

"Did we know this?" Ianto asked with a trembling voice that felt barely like his own.

"I do wonder… But I'm quite sure you took into account that something like this could happen when you pulled your little stunt."

Ianto tightened his hold on his lover's limp form and fought with himself to not start crying again.

"I'm sorry Jack, I'm so sorry…"

**X**

When Jack eventually woke up, he was warm, nestled safely in soft blankets that smelled faintly of conditioner and with a caring hand combing his hair. He pressed against the hand affectionately, but as he moved, it suddenly stilled.

"Are you awake?" Ianto's voice asked unsurely, and Jack distinctively felt him trying to leave his bed.

Jack groaned at the attempted escape and reached for his waist, snuggling closer to him to stop him from leaving.

"Stay here some more… My head feels like I've been run over by a lorry."

"It's my fault, Jack… You might not remember, but you didn't want to see me around you, so-"

"I remember that" Jack reassured him, closing his eyes again and relaxing on Ianto's chest. "And you were right: I can't fault you"

"But I let you fall in love with me, didn't I?" Ianto protested and Jack could only nod and sigh, as he rolled over to stare at the ceiling.

"However, it's _my_ fault, if _I_ fall in love with you"

"I… I was looking forward to catch that movie tomorrow though."

Jack smirked at Ianto's sincere words and looked back at him.

"You can go as forward as to say that?"

Ianto blushed slightly and Jack took him in his arms, letting him rest his head on his chest, before reprimanding him.

"There's nothing wrong enjoying stuff like this"

"And what about wanting everyone to know? Is it wrong of me?"

Jack's eyebrow rose, but he kept his focus once again on the roof.

"You want everyone to know about us?"

"I- I don't know…"

Jack sighed and started petting Ianto's head, literally feeling confusion emanating from Ianto.

"Is this because you're asking yourself why I fell so deeply for you, or why you might have decided to rewrite our past?"

Ianto hid his head on Jack's chest, tightening his hold on his waist. "It's… The family we saw through the Doctor's eyes, that cute little baby sleeping downstairs… I want them, Jack. I'm sorry, but I really want them. I always thought I would be inadequate as a father and as more than just a lover, and we really didn't sign up for this when we started sleeping together… but I want them. A proper couple with children. And I want them with you."

Jack's mind flew back to the scraps of future he had seen.

Ianto had died loving him and he knew he had loved back as much, even though he hadn't said it when it mattered. And that was the first time Ianto admitting his feelings however. He was sure of it. Ianto himself probably was still unsure of Jack's commitment at the time, so he had chosen his demise as an occasion to confess.

His last occasion to confess.

And Jack must have known that, admitting it that openly, for that Ianto, meant say goodbye.

A declaration of love as last words before Death ended the love story that didn't even officially begin.

No matter how many months from now he was supposed to lose Ianto forever, the future was already changing, bringing this Ianto close to admit things he would have never admitted this early according to the visions.

Where this acceleration on their love story left him though? Jack had a hell of a headache for sure, and knowledge about a deleted future he wasn't supposed to have just as much.

And he had to admit that, whether the rewriting had been Ianto's idea or not, he didn't want that future to actually happen. That future was truthfully better deleted, even though the price they were going to pay was great.

He couldn't believe that he truthfully was this much relieved that the rewriting was happening… This was not him, this was not what he was supposed to be. Not anymore.

If he really was like that, then he would never become the hero he hoped to be, he would be nothing more than Ianto's monster. And Ianto could leave him for that, for being once again his fallible conman self, and then what?

The only thing that was certain was that the kid was bound to happen, but it wasn't a reassurance: what if he ended up conceived in a rush of heat between two committed eternal enemies and former lovers? How would that be better than the tragic existence he had left behind?

He ignored the tiny voice in the back of his mind telling him that at least Ianto would be there, because he wasn't so desperately in love with Ianto like in those scraps from the future, and he didn't want that family as much as Ianto did.

There was still Gwen, wasn't it? He liked her and he wasn't as fine as he wanted to be about her marrying Rhys. So he wasn't in love with Ianto. And there was the delivery boy and that old professor on the news and the woman at the forensics…

And Jack had to admit he was most likely finding excuses. Maybe that was why he didn't like the thought of Gwen getting married: only because his biggest excuse to turn things serious with Ianto would cease to exist. Hell with Gwen that was on holiday when he needed her to confuse his feelings like only she could manage, and hell with himself that had sent her there.

Now only he and Ianto remained. The two of them, a tragic future getting rewritten, and a pretty little infant who had Ianto's cute button nose.

"Wait, where's the baby?"

"She's with the Doctor at the moment. Tosh and Owen went home for the night, but should be here soon along with Gwen."

Jack nodded absentmindedly. "Was I out all this time?"

"Yep. You gave us quite a scare."

"Doesn't the baby need-"

"Feeding, clothes, diapers. Don't worry, I got everything after you screamed at me that you didn't want to see me anymore."

Jack swallowed remembering his outburst, but didn't say anything about it. He was still quite angry at the situation in itself, the only difference was that now he recognized that taking out on Ianto couldn't bring him anything good. However, he still didn't trust himself talking about where they were going to go after all that.

"You're really remarkable in all you do"

He felt Ianto's penetrating stare on him, and turned to face him. He looked like he was conflicted about something, and Jack could only hope that said something would end well for him.

"You're remarkable in everything you do too, sir…" Ianto looked sideways as if not quite daring to say more than that. "…also with everyone actually"

A lewd grin spread through Jack's lips, and Ianto peeked from behind his eyelashes to reassure himself than everything was fine before smirking back at him.

"Ianto Jones, are you in the mood?"

"Quite hard not to be in the mood with you naked in the same bed."

Jack looked down at himself appreciatively, noticing his body react interested at Ianto's compliment.

"Well yeah, I can see your point"

Ianto climbed on him, sitting on his lap, his clothed groin creating delicious friction on Jack's naked cock.

"Besides, I'm quite young. You shouldn't fault me for trying to get into your pants."

He moved slowly on Jack, sending thrills of pleasure through his body.

"You will be the death of me, Ianto Jones" Jack breathed out desperately.

Ianto stared at him few moments before cupping his lover's cheek with his hand and smile softly at him. "I'd rather be the life of you, not your death."

Their eyes met and almost immediately their lips clashed together, desperate for one another. This was uncomplicated and good, and for once Ianto couldn't find a thing wrong with it.

**TBC**


	3. Break my routine

**Disclaimer**: I do not own Torchwood and Doctor Who, no copyright infringement intended. If you still want to sue bring Ianto back to Jack first.

**Warnings**: So fix it that it's actually more an Alternative Timeline, still everything gravitates around canon events. Set right before Reset, so spoilers for everything happened in the series after that (MD not included). Not beta-read and English's not my native language. Constructive criticism is appreciated.

**Break my routine**

When Gwen entered the hub, she found everyone already at work, something that, whilst quite typical during certain circumstances, wasn't supposed to happen that day.

Being Torchwood a job that seemed to be more than 24/7, she really didn't feel like neglecting her duty whenever she felt low or needed to spend more time with Rhys in the mornings, ended up being late, and tried to slip inside the hub as quite as she could when proximity alarms screeched her presence to her teammates as soon as she set foot inside.

Each time that happened, as soon as she was in Ianto appeared right in front of her in a matter of seconds, ready with her morning coffee and a reproachful smile on his lips that more than his verbal "Good morning, Gwen" told her '_You're late. Again._'

Gwen double checked her watch, wondering if it had broke by chance, and looked around herself one more time to reassure herself that Ianto still wasn't around with her coffee.

Her punctual teammate missing his daily delivery could only mean two hypothetical scenarios: she wasn't late and something bad had happened work-wise, or she _was_ late and something had happened to her colleague. Either way it was going to be a really troublesome morning.

"Hello, guys! What have you been up to?" She chirped hopefully, eying Toshiko, working at her computer, and Owen, descending to the medical bay. "I'm not late, am I?"

"Barely on time, but not late" Toshiko greeted her with a small smile, while Owen just rolled his eyes and turned on his heels to approach the girls. "How was your holiday?"

"Fine, thanks! Rhys burnt his swimming trunks trying to cook the fish, but" She giggled, cheekily covering her mouth with her hand. "Well, it was interesting to see"

"Well, while you were away we had corpses. Tons of them." Owen butted in, cutting the preliminaries short in favour of a more practical approach.

"Oh, then why I don't see any lying on your bed?" Gwen teased with a distrustful smirk, but significantly more relieved to know that apparently it had just been a busy weekend and nothing too dangerous had happened during her absence.

"That's why we need you." Owen retorted with a snort "You can find a policeman to get laid to snatch us a bloody body, can't ya?"

"I can see what I can do" She said, huffing annoyed at Owen's brutal mannerism "Jack does know about this, right? I don't see him around…"

As she turned to look around her to catch a glimpse of the captain, she found herself face to face with Ianto and his tray of heavenly smelling mugs.

"Oh my God, I missed your coffee Ianto" She told him, relieved to see the final proof she needed to know that everything was alright at the hub. "I missed you appearing out of nowhere a little less though"

Ianto smirked at Gwen and walked past her to bring the other mugs to Owen and Toshiko.

"Nice to see you back, Gwen." He offered politely "Glad to see you're not late today"

Gwen took a long sip of her coffee and then turned her full attention back again on Ianto and the others.

"So, nothing else I missed during the weekend? Bodies to get from the Police aside"

"Yeah, actually Jack and I had a daughter" Ianto told her with a smart smile on his face as he delivered the last mug of coffee and professionally swept the now empty tray under his arm.

"Oh, yeah" Toshiko added with an eager nod. "And Jack's Doctor is currently living downstairs in the basement and playing nanny to her. They are quite endearing together, you really must go and see them"

Ianto's same grin on Toshiko's face strangely managed to look a bit more honest and sincere, however Gwen decided to not fell for it so easily.

"You're having me on, aren't you?" Gwen said with a tentative smile on her lips, wondering if she was supposed to laugh. "I was away for one single week-end and Jack certainly wasn't pregnant when I left. Unless men have flash pregnancies, this can't be possible"

"Is this the only thing Torchwood worries about?" A voice foreign to Gwen complained. She turned towards its source and found a man in a bowtie cuddling a newborn baby in his arms. "That Jack wasn't pregnant two days ago, not that he could have been impregnated to begin with."

"Bloody Torchwood" Gwen commented, as she realized that the strange man might as well be the Doctor of Jack's tales and her teammates could be telling the truth.

Jack's loud laugh came from behind them as the captain escaped his office to pat friendly Gwen on her shoulder before moving next to Ianto and Toshiko.

"Well, this is my Torchwood, Doc. I told you my team was different." He said triumphantly before turning his attention back to the Welshwoman. "Gwen, what Ianto and Tosh said is kind of true actually, but you shouldn't worry much about it. Just do your work and get Owen one corpse or two to examine"

"Wait, what do you mean with _don't worry much about it_!?" Gwen argued, irritated by his quick dismissal "It's a bloody child, you can't ha-"

"I didn't bore her, Gwen, not yet at least." Jack reasoned calmly, trying to offer her a sympathetic smile. "I'm not dismissing you easily, but we can't really do much about her. We are going with the flow ourselves. No plan to follow, no immediate dangers for Torchwood to look out for... No job-related mission at all"

"Oh" She commented, still quite confused by his words but accepting the explanation nonetheless. "Ok"

The Doctor simply shook his head at the unorthodox Torchwood approach to strange situation and wondered how they survived this long at all. Noticing that the Time Lord was quite distracted at the moment, Ianto tried to move towards him to get his daughter back from him, something that he had tried to do since breakfast despite the forcible denial coming from the alien.

Unfortunately, before he could finally take her, Jack patted his shoulder and pointed him to his office. "Ianto, I need to talk to you."

Ianto sighed and tiredly moved the tray he was still holding on his shoulder, rolling his eyes at the request and just knowing that the end of their small truce had already come.

Owen and Toshiko perceived the same thing and went quickly back to their workplaces, bringing Gwen along with them in order to add to Jack's general explanation the '_private'_ consequences that the arrival of the Doctor and the small child had caused between their boss and their teammate.

The only one that was left in the darkness was the Doctor, who, truth to be told, didn't care much about the way Torchwood meant to deal -officially or privately- with the current state of affairs: all the mixed kind of technology inside the hub were enough to keep him interested and happy. Domestics on the other hand were just annoying, and by Jack's tone of voice, a domestic was just about to happen.

As to prove the Doctor right, as soon as Jack took his position at his desk, Ianto, who was following him to sit on the table near him, at the last moment changed his mind and settled in front of him, standing at what could be called safe-distance. Not too far that his lover felt overly accused and isolated, but not too close either, in order to show him how they viewed the matter at hand from two very different points of view.

"What did you want to tell me about?"

"You know why I called you here" Jack said sternly but quietly, leaning over his desk to rest his chin on his entwined fingers. "I'm not angry at you telling Gwen that the baby is ours, it's the honest truth after all… But I do wonder about your reasons"

"Reasons" Ianto half quoted half asked, trying to keep a blank mask on.

"You're fine going through the original plan, aren't you?" Jack insisted, visibly irritating Ianto more.

"What plan? You said it yourself: we don't have a plan"

"If her parents don't find her within a reasonable time frame, she will have to go for adoption." Jack reminded him. "At least now we know she's human without asking Owen for tests."

Ianto gaped at Jack's statement, remembering all too well the discussion they had at the very beginning. "Jack… She _is_ your daughter."

"Technically speaking" Jack pointed out plainly, lowering his eyes to stare at a random point on his desk "If we agree that _you_ are not actually to blame for this mess we're in, then consequently we should also agree that _she_ is not actually our daughter"

"Well" Ianto argued, pursing his lips in anger and crossing his arms on his chest. "I didn't agree to that shit when we didn't know who she was, didn't I? So I'm obviously much less willing to give her away after discovering she's mine. Blame me about this mess if it makes you happier, but I'm not giving away my own flash and blood, no matter if I personally didn't contribute to her conception."

Ianto expected Jack to look up at him, move, yell or whatever, instead his lover simply sighed and lowered his head tiredly behind the line of his hands. It was quite reassuring to see that Jack he had most likely predicted his stern objection: it usually meant that there was a good chance that the captain decided to change his first idea.

"So, what would you do?" Jack asked, still refusing to meet Ianto's eyes.

"If you don't want her, I'll keep her."

Jack stared quickly up at him and raised an eyebrow at his statement. "With Torchwood?"

"Why not?" Ianto challenged him, shifting his weight on his other foot "I have a sister that works at home when she does, I could ask her for help while I'm here. She will be thrilled to see her brother on daily basis."

Jack couldn't object a thing to Ianto's reasoning, still it was hard for him to hide how much his cold logic hurt him.

"And what about us?" He asked eventually

"I don't see why things should change. I highly doubt that you will allow me to keep her at the hub, and when we see each other outside work… Well, you must have dated single parents in all that long life of yours, I'm sure you know the drill. After all" Ianto paused and stared meaningfully at Jack in the eyes. "It's not like you feel her as your daughter. It won't make any difference for you to know who she is"

"Ianto" Jack almost whined, hurt more than he wanted to show by Ianto's plain words. "Her birth is fixed, but we have no idea in what circumstances she will be conceived from now on. What if we go separate ways and she happens only when we meet again for one single fleeting moment? Would you really keep her with you only to discover later on that in reality we weren't together anymore? See her being born in the future only to know that you already cared for her in the past while you dated a man you hate and that you will lose her soon?"

"Yes." Ianto answered, his voice unfaltering. "Besides, in this time or in the future she'd always be my responsibility"

Jack's stare hardened a bit, but Ianto somehow felt that it wasn't strictly related to what he had said about himself.

"She was _that_ Ianto responsibility, and he tossed her back through his own timeline to change it. He used her, so don't tell me about future-selves' responsibilities, because he showed to not have half of your care for _his own flash and blood_. Ianto, I know _you_, but I don't know _him_. I don't even know who _I_ will be in the future." He took a deep breath. "I don't really know what to think about both of them actually and, truth to be told, I don't think I do want to know them all that much."

"It angers you knowing the only thing fixed in your future: you don't like the fact that you might not have any real choice to make for your current life in the end" Ianto stated, closing the distance between himself and his lover, eventually sitting on Jack's desk near him as he usually did.

Jack simply nodded, burying his head behind his palms and taking a deep breath.

"In those flashes of rewritten time… I saw you dying yesterday" Jack admitted, his voice almost cracking as Ianto tried to sooth his pain stroking his hair. "You were beautiful, even in death. You were beautiful… and too young, Ianto. If this… _mess_ didn't happen, I don't know how many months more we would have had. I don't really know what to think about it... Not having enough time for what I want to do is something that had been foreign to me for a long time."

"And she's reminding you of what it might have been." Ianto added to his previous assertion, once again hitting home.

"And what I would have become…" Jack admitted, leaning more on Ianto for comfort and hoping this way to erase the doubts of his mind.

"Jack, we might have had our reasons…"

"You had your reasons to try and save Lisa despite the risk of destroying the Earth" Jack said, giving the needed answer to both of them with that single first statement. "You can't really say that those reasons were reasonable or that the consequences would have been completely harmless if Lisa were to survive the ordeal"

"Still you can't take it out on that child" Ianto found enough strength to argue despite admitting the truth behind his lover's words, trying to bring more of Jack onto his lap. "Lisa was dangerous, my reasons childish and the consequences would have devastated more than just us and the two people that died that day, but… _she_'s just a baby, Jack. Not a dangerous cyber-woman. Moreover, I bet that I counted on my younger self to take care of her… We saw me crying when she disappeared, and you held me after that…"

"Yeah, because we had no choice probably" Jack admitted with a loud sigh "I know that there is no other explanation for what we saw… Still, we are reasoning as ourselves at the moment, and the Doctor feels different"

"The Doctor can be wrong!" Ianto yelled, tightening once again his grip on his lover "Please, leave her with me if you don't want to take care of her, but I'm sure that, as soon as this rewriting stops, her parents will be back to get her! I'll stay with her when and where you can't see her, she will be always somewhere outside the hub and you will never meet her if that's necessary!"

Jack smirked back at Ianto adoringly despite his better judgement, making Ianto widen his eyes in surprise at his unpredicted attitude.

"You can still be this stubborn after everything that has happened between us? It's since when you chased me for a job that I didn't see this side of you so openly… I kind of missed it"

Ianto didn't really know what to say about that, but eventually he tenderly smirked back at Jack. "Well, it's not like you ever said directly _no_ to me again after that time"

"Oh, so you can't take _no_ for an answer?" Jack asked playfully, but also hiding a dark suspicious undertone to it.

Ianto swallowed, feeling the danger of such a question and knowing that Jack, even better than him, already knew the answer to that. That was, after all, one of the reasons why his lover sometimes found difficult trusting him to follow his orders.

"You know that I can't" He admitted in a quite subdued manner, lowering his head and closing his eyes for a moment, as he searched for the right words to tell Jack his own thought on the matter "But I would never hurt you and put the Earth fate on the line: not again, not willingly and certainly not behind your back. You must know that"

"I know I should, but I'm not famous to trust the right people for a job… I believed in Suzie when she said she could handle the glove, and she did the mess she did eventually"

"Suzie killed people in cold blood and then took her life to not get in prison. You said you saw me dying, did I die that way? Trying to protect myself from the right punishment for some crime I did?"

Jack smiled softly at Ianto and then shook his head.

"No Ianto, you died in the line of duty, I'm certain of this… We had quite the end, the two of us" He said with a forced chuckle that was meant to hide the tears that were threatening to flow down his cheeks "Dramatic '_catch me as I fall_' scene, tears, a love confession and the epic final kiss before dying together. Shakespeare would have loved that… _I_ would have loved that if I had stayed dead with you…"

Jack hugged Ianto's waist tightly and buried his head on his lap, urging his lover to hold him back. The Welshman tried his best to make him comfortable, carding his hand through his hair in a weak attempt to comfort his man the best he could.

"Then trust me" Ianto whispered softly.

"I trust _you_" Jack confirmed promptly. "But I don't trust _them_, no matter how much I'm glad you that won't die on me like that"

"What if you're wrong and I do die in the end? I'm not immortal at the moment"

"One day you will become immortal, I already told you, there's no other logical choice. Then you will hate me… I can only hope to keep you with more than a few months more though"

Jack's firm conviction that he was going to become immortal unnerved Ianto quite a bit, but he couldn't hide how all of the consequent drama his lover put up for it warmed him inside. He had always thought that it wasn't his place to ask Jack for more from their relationship, since he was bound to leave him alone in the end, but maybe, just maybe, if Jack was right, he could really hope for more than just offer him a good time.

Hope to be more than just a blip in time.

"I would never hate you, Jack. I _can't_, because I-"

"It's future" Jack interrupted him quickly, still not ready to hear those words from Ianto. "A future that for the moment has no fixed points in time anymore except one. Now more than any time in our existence, everything is possible."

"We know we'll be having a child" Ianto reasoned "You always said that you had enough about kids, so we must be dear to one another to have you decide to break your wow… Everything can happen in two thousand years, you said so yourself"

"It's two thousand bloody years, Ianto" Jack protested, taking some distance from his lover to look at him better in the eyes "You really think you will stay struck with me all that time?"

"I'd love that" Ianto admitted softly, the hint of tender smile on his lips eventually making all Jack's recrimination deflate.

"Ok, Ianto" He said tiredly as he retreated from Ianto's embrace, admitting his complete defeat. "Ok, you may go"

Ianto blinked a couple of times at his words, not quite certain where they left the three of them in the end.

"Wait, what about the kid? Will you really back out?"

Much to his stupor, Jack answered with one of those smart grins of his. "Do you know me for someone who would turn his back on his own flash and blood?"

"No" Ianto said quickly, studying attentively Jack's expression to decipher the meaning behind that question until Jack laughed at him, and the Welshman was finally certain to have gotten it right. "Thanks, Jack!"

Ianto held his lover tight and, as soon as he let him lose, he left a simple yet tender kiss on Jack's lips. That kiss, more than Ianto's aborted confession from before, told Jack that there was really no turning back in their relationship right now.

Jack waited until Ianto was out of his office before inhaling deeply, throwing tiredly his feet on his desk and letting his head rest on the back of his chair, the thoughts about his current lover mixing with the ones of his previous family.

"Not anymore at least"

**X**

Despite the worst fears he'd had when he had followed his lover inside his office, Ianto had been fairly happy with the outcome of their discussion. Yeah, of course they had still a long way to go, but at least now Jack had stepped out from his self-defensive denial and had even accepted the consequences do the current predicament they were in.

Not that he could have other possibilities, but, even lacking other escaping routes, his lover was well known to stubbornly stand his ground just on a matter of principle. Getting out of what promised to be the worst domestic they've ever had in barely a couple of days was certainly a super achievement by their standards.

He was so lost in his reminiscences of the last few minutes that, when he eventually reached the main area of the hub, he bounced against Gwen, who was rushing towards the cog door, eventually ending up with her falling in his arms.

"Oh my!" She said worriedly, covering her mouth with the tip of both her hands as she regained her balance. "I'm so sorry, Ianto!"

"Don't worry" He told her, smiling politely as he let her go and took a step back from her. "It was my fault, I wasn't watching where I was going"

Gwen studied him for a moment and decided that it was about time for her to play the part of the concerned friend, stepping quite firmly on Ianto's side: when a child was involved, it _had_ to take priority over everything else and on _both_ the parents, so she _had_ to be _sure_ where the two men stand on this.

"Uhm… Everything was fine with Jack, was it? You know that you can count on me to yell at him if he doesn't want to do his part, don't you?"

Ianto blinked a couple of times at her, and then his gaze turned to Toshiko, understanding quickly the reason from Gwen's interest in their situation _in such terms_. "You've been snooping though the CCTV again, haven't you?"

Toshiko guiltily buried herself back in the book she was pretending to read and Owen found a sudden interest in doing the inventory down the medic bay. Gwen, for a while, simply smiled awkwardly at him, not having an immediate occupation to hide behind.

"I've gotta go" She said eventually, and in a flash she disappeared through the cog door, leaving a quite perplexed Ianto behind.

The Welshman shook his head, somewhat uncertain about how he felt with his teammates knowing about what had happened with Jack in his office. He tried to replay the scene in his mind and decided that yes, the idea of all that being common knowledge among the team hurt more than just a bit.

Their insecurities, those fleeting intimate moments in which they had almost confessed to one another and, on Jack's side, the tale of his own darkest fear becoming true with consequent tears flowing. Nothing there would help Jack's still insecure leading of their Torchwood or Ianto's desperate striving to be recognised as more than a tea-boy and the captain's personal secretary/office affair.

He sighed and decided that it wasn't time for recrimination anymore: he had a way more practical mission to accomplish, and it wasn't like he could retcon his own teammates if he wanted to. He scanned quickly the room, but except for Toshiko and Owen there wasn't anyone else around. He was about to go to his computer and have a look through the CCTV and finally find the Doctor and his daughter, but the two half-worried half-reproachful stares he perceived on himself made him change his mind.

To not prove their suspicions right, eventually Ianto gave up searching for his child and irritably took his board from his station, marching towards the storage rooms to start his usual routine and feed the residents.

He knew that he was supposed to take care of the baby only for a small amount of time, but he already missed her when she wasn't around… And the Doctor keeping her away from him was more than just a little suspicious.

**X**

It took some time to Gwen to come back with the corpse commissioned by Owen and, when she eventually did it, she felt completely traumatized by the experience. She dragged the black sack containing the body towards the centre of the area by sheer will and, as soon as it was within the medic's reach, she run for the bathroom to vomit, completely disgusted by having to share the sole company of a corpse for all that time.

"You own me, Owen" She threatened him as soon as she was back, still shaking in disgust. On the contrary to her conjectures though, her ruffled appearance wasn't welcomed in the usual harsh way she would have expected by her teammates.

Sharing Gwen's sentiment on the corpse company, Toshiko managed to contain a laughter and offered her a more warm smile, whilst Owen, much less empathic that his colleagues, simply laughed loudly at her expenses as he considered the best way to get his prize down to the bay. No matter how much he loved to pick on Gwen, he considered that she had already had enough for the day and that would suffice without adding insults or the threat to make her help him.

"Tea boy! Help here a minute!" He called in the end. "I want to have a look at this anomaly before that kid comes"

Ianto, who had been hidden in the shadows of the kitchenette washing their dirty mugs, simply rolled his eyes and moved down to help the medic with the corpse.

"Anomaly?" Gwen asked with a risen eyebrow. "It's just a bloody corpse"

"The situation is so unclear that even UNIT is interested in the case" Owen explained with a challenging risen eyebrow of his own as he got Ianto's opposite extremity of the sack and moved backwards towards the medic bay "Proof is that it's sending someone here to nibble at our work"

"Jack allowed UNIT inside!?" Gwen yelled in utter shock, following the boys with her eyes before reaching the protective rail and leaning over it.

She didn't know precisely what this UNIT was and did truth to be told, but one thing she knew for certain: whenever UNIT was involved, Jack screamed, yelled and threatened everyone. That alone had been enough to tell her that she'd better no suggest any inter-agency cooperation. Ever again.

"Yeah!" Owen said, letting the sack fall on his hospital bed quite loudly and smirking evilly at Ianto, who was already working on his side of the sack to open it. "This means that the agent was a good shag or will most likely be one"

Ianto stared up at Owen and held his gaze for some time before finishing up in silence his job and leaving the medical bay with a roll of his eyes. His attempt to storm out the lived area of the hub, though, was stopped by his lover, who walked in his direction to meet him halfway through the hub.

"Going anywhere?" Jack asked playfully, but not quite managing to hide his concern for his lover after Owen's insinuations. His smirk gained a little more self confidence when he noted the relatively relaxed attitude his lover was sporting despite the joke.

"I'm not escaping for sure" Ianto answered him with a reassuring smile on his lips before turning slightly more serious. "However, I meant to ask a few minutes off"

Jack looked at him with wide eyes at first, but it was soon clear to him Ianto's reason to ask some time for himself, the same reason that had him stalking every corner of the hub even while doing his work impeccably as always.

Even though he would have liked to grant his lover his wish –and maybe add himself to the picture too- at the moment their work-related situation didn't allow any personal time, so he tried his best to soften his expression before communicating him the bad news.

"I'm sorry Ianto, but I can't spare you at the moment. I need you to keep an eye upstairs: Martha should be here any moment."

"I could be with her while waiting for UNIT" Ianto insisted, fighting with himself to not pout at his yet again aborted attempt to have a personal life. As an answer to his displeasure, Jack took him reassuringly by his shoulders, closing the distance between them a little bit.

"Ianto, she's alright. You realise that you will need to escort Martha through the autopsy bay, don't you? Do you really think that's something a newborn needs to see?"

Ianto licked his lower lip and eventually nodded. "Yeah, sorry. It's just… Plainly annoying that I know that my daughter is here in this same building and I can't even see her. I know you trust the Doctor, but…"

He let the sentence suspended, knowing that there was no need to express his own doubts to Jack. He could see it in Jack's eyes that, despite everything, he trusted the Time Lord, so it was just plainly pointless to point it out. They stared at each other in the eyes for a bit, both trying to decide where they should go from there: Jack knew that it would have been the perfect time for a kiss or a hug, and also that Ianto would need that reassurance. However they were still working, and they both realised that they couldn't let personal matters intrude more than they already were, bar make their relationship plainly official.

"Ok, then" Jack simply stated eventually, awkwardly freeing Ianto from his grip. "As soon as Martha's here and well settled, I'll send you to get the child. I promise. Besides, Martha being here might distract the Doctor for long enough to let you escape with our kid without him realising she's gone"

"Thank you" Ianto answered with a soft chuckle, and after a small courtesy nod to his boss, he went to Toshiko to fix the data in their possession to update the upcoming UNIT member when she would get there.

Jack followed Ianto's quite movements around the hub for a while and then tracked down Gwen, who was just then sitting at her station with a mug of hot coffee in her hands. She smiled tightly upon seeing him, vaguely suspecting his reasons to get her alone.

"Gwen, can I ask you something?" He started a bit uncertain.

"As long as it's not about children you can go ahead." She told him before she could realise how wrong her phrasing sounded. "I never had any, I wouldn't know how to help you"

"It's about Ianto" Jack explained with a frown on his face that was only barely masked as a smile. She couldn't refrain to chuckle at his insecurity before eventually gesturing him to go on. "What do you think about him?"

Gwen stopped laughing altogether and stared shocked at him with her mouth open for some time before finding something proper to answer. "What would I think about him? He's a great guy…"

"I mean…" Jack said, stealing glances in Ianto's direction as he tried to keep his calm mask on. "Do you think he's more a father or a Torchwood employee?"

It took some time for the real meaning of Jack's words to be clear to her, and somehow she got that laid out to her there wasn't just the request of her opinion on the matter, but also the necessity to make Jack openly admit the implications of his own question.

"Jack, honestly, what's your point here? I don't think he we'll ever leave here to care for a baby." She said matter-of-factly, staring honestly at him. "He will never leave you, that's more than obvious. He can see how much you hold him precious in your heart, despite the dangers of this work"

"It-it's not it" Jack protested, realising that Gwen had hit home way more than he hoped for "I don't make preferences among the four of you. All of you are the same to me…"

"No, this is exactly what this is about." Gwen confirmed, looking at Ianto herself. "And you do make preferences. It's not bad, it's normal. It's human… Still I think I might have read it wrong this whole time."

Jack stared back at her questioningly, but she simply smiled back at him.

"I think this little incident is good, you know? It finally led you to show your care to who really matters the most to you. It's good as long as you don't let it hinder your jobs." She offered him a wide gap-toothed grin. "And I didn't think I would ever live enough to see Jack Harkness jealous, much less jealous of an infant"

He burst in laughter, quite embarrassed by the statement, but recognizing how Gwen was right. Changes scared him, and adding a child to an unstable relationship like the one he had with Ianto was a recipe for disaster, but rephrasing all of this, yeah, he was basically jealous of a child. His own child to say it aloud.

He was about to thank her before going to the autopsy table where Owen was already babbling incongruous notions to himself, when his head started throbbing again and another violent wave of pain stabbed his brain to its deepest core, making him fall trembling on the ground.

"Jack!?" Gwen called in panic "JACK!"

Her yells brought all the others at Jack's side except Owen, who had not only to snap away the gloves he was using to examine the corpse, but also to get the sedative they needed from wherever he had store it. Ianto, Tosh and Gwen could only hope for Owen to reach them soon, but none of them knew what to do to soothe Jack's pain in the meanwhile.

"Don't tell me this is the infamous rewriting! It's just cruel!" Gwen protested, before scanning attentively her teammate expressions for answers: Tosh seemed as worried as her, but Ianto, who had promptly took Jack in his arms to give him something to grab to, had a mask so blank on his face that she knew it had to be fake.

She put her hand reassuringly over his and smiled awkwardly at him, but despite her good intentions, Ianto's panic was too much to trust anything to be fine.

Even Toshiko switched her attention to Ianto, at least knowing what to do to comfort him: she hugged his shoulders tightly and brought him closer to her, praying in her mind that Owen hurried with the sedative.

Ianto, however, was completely unaware of his surroundings, totally focused on his lover. He cradled him even more in his lap to give him at least a bit of apparent comfort and then just closed his eyes, hoping that way to shield himself from Jack's cries too.

His hope, though, was more than just unreal, as Jack kept clinging to him for dear life, not so differently from the day before and all those times in which he was in utter pain after coming back to life. With a so string reminding of his lover's sufferance there was no way he could forget his surroundings.

At a certain point Jack let out a strangled cry louder than the other. All the pain he was feeling along with the vague presence of his lover and friends around him blurred once again and he understood that no matter how much he clang to Ianto, the man alone couldn't save him from the upcoming bits of future, bits that he almost feared more than the others, as they would be about his life without Ianto.

And indeed they were.

_The images passed quickly in front of his eyes: his grandson Steven looking up at him with his big blue eyes just before getting electrocuted by the hand of his own grandfather. Dark thick blood seeped through his nostrils and in place of those brilliant blue eyes there was only the whiteness of the death. _

_Then everything changed and he was in something that looked in every single way like a bar. There, there was Ianto, shock written all over his features as the disgust for his own life crept out of his apparently cool façade. Then the scene darkened, like the night had suddenly fallen on them, hiding shrills cries and whispered words of love, before the shadows were lit up by an explosion. _

_That made the scenery change once again around him. _

_Now he was in the open air, on a small hill during a cold dark night, staring at a distraught and pregnant Gwen. He felt the wetness drying on his cheeks, his heart hurting way more than his head was. _

"…_it's a graveyard" was the only thing he heard himself say amongst many, and then Gwen's figure faded as the cold light of his Vortex Manipulator surrounded him and he made out another fragment of dialogue, this time more resolute than the other "Just watch me" _

_Then he was in a space-bar._

_From there on the images fast forwarded, but the different bits he managed to focus on showed him their regularity and dullness in topic: he felt drunk and in front of him too many empty bottle of liquor added to the already too many empty glasses of unknown drinks, an unfocused face greeted him and offered him a small brief moment of relief from his pain, then again boozes and then again another anonymous laid in a never ending cycle of guilt and self deprecation. _

_Every scene was fast forwarded so quickly that Jack almost felt sick by the continuous sensation of getting regularly pissed._

_Then everything faded again as a loud shrill brought Jack's focus back on his hub, in the comfortable embrace of his lover_.

"Fuck, it's UNIT!" Ianto cried, staring alternatively at Jack and at the door, clearly conflicted between duty and the pained man in his arms.

"I'll go get her" Gwen said, taking the problem in her hands and rushing out the cog door, without wasting any more time to consult the others on what it was most proper to do with the UNIT girl.

Ianto felt slightly worthless as an agent, letting Gwen so readily picking up what was supposed to be his job to do, but, as soon as his eyes fell once again on his suffering lover, he could easily determine that he couldn't care less about both Torchwood and UNIT. They could play their power games after this ended if they wanted to, but what really was his duty as an agent and as a lover was to protect his captain, to protect his beloved.

"Owen!" He called as Jack's breathing began coming out even harsher than before "Quick! He's hurting badly!"

"Don't rush me, tea boy!" Owen's distant protest came along with the loud noise of the medic tripping on the stairs of the medical bay.

Ianto tightened his hold on Jack and kissed the top of his head, hoping to keep Jack focused on the present with his constant attentions, but before long another illusion swept Jack's consciousness away.

_Jack found himself staring once again at the same very quick scenes as before, but this time among the empty bottle of liquor and the nameless faces, there were also strange planets, aliens, wars and treasures, sometimes even Earth itself. Jack thought for a moment that it was good to be back on following adventures around the galaxy, but the dull ache in his heart told him that he had barely enjoyed those. _

_The adventures he was part of felt more like they had happened around him, offering him a little more than a distraction, in a way that was no different from what the boozes and the people he had managed to get laid had managed to do. _

_At a certain point, the scenes slowed down to a sudden stop, and he eventually got the chance to see himself in a mirror. He felt the blood drain from his face: he was bloody old… How was that even possible? _

_Before he could find some reason for his old appearance around himself in the scene he was seeing, the same rush of scenes as before started again in quick motion, offering to him another set of sceneries all similar to one another. This time however in each of them he could manage to get a glimpse of himself: he was getting older and older… Had he really been this old in the Doctor's flashback?_

_Finally the Doctor found him, the same Doctor he had met the day before. The Doctor, regenerated during the thousand years he hadn't seen him, had eventually joined him in his pain and offered another distraction, a distraction that, however, alone was worth all the fast forwarded scenes he had seen. _

_He saw the Doctor bringing him in the TARDIS, helping him in the way he would care for an old man. After some long explanations he couldn't hear, the Time lord pressed a button and his lover materialized in front of him. And he felt himself knowing exactly what to do. Despite the warnings Doctor was blabbing to him, Jack closed the space between himself and Ianto, and hugged him tightly… and then, let a small white bomb fall. _

_It exploded, creating a bubble around them and transporting them to another dimension._

_Before he could see the new place he had trapped themselves in, however, the darkness enfolded him again and Jack's focus was brought back on his hub, filled with people screaming at each other. He felt the cold metal a needle penetrating his flesh and then the voices surrounding him tuned down again as his whole weight was left to Ianto to sustain._

As he felt his lover deeply asleep in his arms, Ianto sighed tiredly and nodded at Owen, who was staring at him more than at Jack to know if the sedative had eventually worked out for the best. As soon as the Welshman had confirmed their captain's conditions, Owen himself took a deep breath and sat next to him, relief flooding on him as much as exhaustion.

"Ok, what was that!?" Martha yelled in anger, more than just a little suspicious of the Torchwood crew. "What are you doing to Jack!?"

Jack had told her only good things about his Torchwood, but both the Doctor and the rest of UNIT hadn't been kind with the organization, and what she'd just seen didn't bid in favour of Jack's opinion about this wicked association.

"We're doing nothing to him" Toshiko protested, her calm and cool voice betraying more than just a hint of mistrust against the newcomer.

"Oh, so you're just going to tell me that this is common occurrence?" She argued, glaring at Gwen, accountable for the aborted attempts to give her some kind of rationalization on what was currently hindering Torchwood captain.

"It's not a common occurrence" Gwen tried once again to explain. "Something came up and affected Jack, we're trying our best to care for him"

"Why should I believe Torchwood? You've nothing but bad records on you, from Canary Warf to monsters and things from the past devastating the world"

"You can ask to the Doctor if you don't trust us" Ianto stated plainly and coldly, but with a voice so small and evanescent that no one of the others was sure he had really spoken.

Their stares converged on him, but Ianto didn't even move his eyes from the sleeping form of his lover, still petting Jack's hair reassuringly and holding him safely at him.

"This might be Jack's Torchwood, but it's still Torchwood." Martha stated eventually, despite her need to snort at the strange guy in a suit for even thinking that the Doctor himself could fall into Torchwood hands by his own will "The Doctor hates it."

Ianto ignored her altogether, whilst the others stared back at Martha deeply offended by her insinuation, but they refrained to say anything about that as they heard the sound of trainer shoes approaching, a sound that could belong only to the last person currently inside the hub.

"Well, I had to go with the flow" Said a voice foreign to Martha.

When she turned to see who had just spoken, however she had to admit that there was something familiar in the strange man with a bowtie holding a small baby in his arms.

"Doctor?" She asked tentatively.

"Yeah" He answered happily, offering her a wide honest smile "Changed a bit from the last time you saw me, but it's still me."

Martha's eyes lowered to the child in his arms and her eyebrows moved even higher than they already were.

"You had- you had a baby?" She asked more than a little astonished, but the Doctor didn't seem to understand what she was asking to him at first.

"What, who?" He said, looking around himself before remembering something and, only then, looking down at the child soundly asleep in his arms.

"Oh, this!" The Doctor cried dramatically as he nodded in the vague direction of the Torchwood team gathered together "It's not mine actually, it's theirs." He interrupted himself and frowned a bit. "I mean, not quite." He frowned more. "Or better, not yet." Eventually the same happy smile from before graced once again his lips and he fully focused back on Martha "Still not mine though."

Martha took a moment to question the meaning of the Doctor's blabbering and who that _'theirs'_ could refer to, but, upon seeing how strongly the man in a suit was still clinging to the captain ignoring all the others, she bet her money on them.

"So, what's happening to Jack then? I don't think that all that crying and screaming is normal"

"Long story" Ianto snapped out of the blue, before the Doctor could start with his own explanation of the situation involving the child and Jack's rewriting. "I thought UNIT was just here for the corpse. There's no need to explain something not related to that case. This is a Torchwood problem"

Martha gaped at the supposedly quiet man brutal manners, and froze when his eyes finally rose from Jack to meet hers as two glacial ice pools, unyielding and unmoving.

"Jack is my friend" She stated with more than just a hint of outrage, but Ianto ignored her and instead took Jack in his arms bridal style with more than a little effort to make him lay on the much more comfortable sofa few feet from where they were all gathered.

"Your words" He retorted eventually, his whole focus once again on his captain.

Ianto's cold voice took everyone by surprise, but, after what they had seen Jack going through, they decided to keep quiet about it and leave the two lovers alone for some time. They all had seen what an angry and desperate Ianto was able to do, and they really didn't need a reprisal.

Owen and Toshiko got quickly back on their feet. The doctor, without much subtlety, lead Martha to the medical bay, whilst the girls followed closely trying to signal her without words that they would explain everything later at a safer distance.

The Doctor, on the other hand, wasn't as inclined as the others to let Ianto's quip slide and approached Ianto, staring at him warily as he tried to understand what the hell was going on in that mind of his.

"She _is_ his friend" He said plainly "Didn't he tell you-"

"I know she's his friend" Ianto snapped at him, barely glancing towards the Doctor "I still don't need to be reminded the details of… _this_" He focused again on his lover, his worry for Jack's wellbeing now clearly written on his face.

He sighed and then peeked once again in the Doctor's direction "And I want my daughter back"

The Time Lord grimaced at Ianto's stubbornness, but he himself was bound to admit that he had a point. Still that didn't mean that he didn't have a few points of his own to point out.

"Do you really think you can take care of both of them at the same time?" He asked challengingly.

"I don't know" The Welshman admitted "But I want to do it anyway"

"And you are _really_ sure that this has _nothing_ to do with showing off how much of a family you are to your teammates and Martha?" The Doctor drawled. "Because, you know, you aren't a real family at the moment."

Ianto snorted at him and turned towards him, offering him one of his infamous smirks.

"If I wanted to show to someone that Jack is _mine,_ I would plan things way better than this: I would organise everything so that said _someone_ would walk on us right while we're doing each other." His eyes somewhat seemed to turn even eviler, as if he could already see the scene playing in front of himself, despite the candid and honest expression he was still sporting. "I would be the innocent victim of an act of voyeurism along with my partner and she will be shamed once and for all."

"So there's someone you would like to show off to." The Doctor noted, understanding now a bit more of that infamous future that was getting rewritten. "Evil plan by the way, you should stop wondering why I suspect of you."

Ianto's smirk faded as he turned serious once again and stared directly at the Doctor.

"I would never do anything that could hurt Jack"

"Death can change people" The Time Lord felt the need to add, not breaking eye contact with Ianto.

"Not me." The Welshman stated firmly, surprising the Doctor who was already thinking that Ianto might really have been the one to instigate Jack in a way no different of what that Suzie of theirs had done in the past "I don't care if Jack doesn't trust any of us in that future. I trust my feelings and him enough for the both of us."

The Doctor sighed and eventually lowered his eyes, too many things he knew about Jack coming back to his mind. "You don't know Jack as well as you think"

"Is that what you think of Jack? If that's true why you're ready to give me the guilt and save him?" Ianto retorted, glaring at the Doctor. The Time Lord grudgingly capitulated at his logic and offered to a surprised Welshman his baby to hold as a peace token.

"In a short while I'll be back to take her again" He said as soon as the infant was nestled safely in Ianto's embrace.

Ianto smiled warmly at his daughter and cooed her a bit before turning once again his attention on the Doctor, who was still staring down at them pensively.

"Why don't you want me to stay with her?"

"I've got my reasons" The Doctor stated cryptically, and with that he strolled towards the medical bay to watch the apes at work.

Ianto on the other hand, finally feeling reassured by the child presence with him and Jack, rested his head against his lover's shoulder to rest a bit, hoping that things would finally get better for all of them from there on.

**TBC**


	4. Bloodbath

**Disclaimer**: I do not own Torchwood and Doctor Who, no copyright infringement intended. If you still want to sue bring Ianto back to Jack first.

**Warnings**: So fix it that it's actually more an Alternative Timeline, still everything gravitates around canon events. Set right before Reset, spoilers for everything happened in the series after that episode (MD not included). Not beta-read and English's not my native language. Constructive criticism is appreciated. Slightly gore-ish near the end.

**Bloodbath**

As a matter of fact, things only got worse and frenzied from that point onwards.

As soon as Jack woke up, he reprimanded Ianto for neglecting his duties in order to watch over him. He also told him that they had been lucky that UNIT had actually sent Martha as he had requested and not someone else, otherwise the entire Torchwood Cardiff branch would have been screwed.

Moreover, Jack added, there were plenty of reason why he had always trusted Ianto, and only Ianto, to handle the accesses to their hub, and none of them was him being a Welshman in Wales. Everyone could tend to him, but only Ianto had what it took to explain a difficult situation properly –or outright lie about it- and detour an unwanted guest until things became safe again.

Ianto had wanted to counter that, after seeing his lover in such a state, he couldn't give a damn about the UNIT-Torchwood relationship, but before he could speak his mind it had been Jack himself to point out his '_wandering loyalties'_, expressing his concern about how now he seemed more keen on protecting him and their daughter rather than their hub and its secrets.

The unspoken '_If you can't help yourself, you can't be Torchwood anymore_' was heard loud and clear by Ianto, who chose to give up the fight with Jack and bit his lip, in a weird mix of both outrage and shame. A shame that, however, was equally shared with Jack himself.

His embarrassed and exasperated expression, the soft blush on his cheeks and his frightened and sad eyes told Ianto that the captain was, more than actually condemning him, yelling at his own frustrating weakness that had compromised the environment right before the UNIT member's arrival.

Despite recognizing the harmlessness –and the uselessness- of the rant aimed at him, Ianto couldn't deny that all those accusations still hurt quite a bit. What the hell had Jack seen in those flashbacks of his that had made him close up again so much inside his shell? And why had all that to happen now that their relationship was finally progressing?

Eventually, all Ianto could do was to plainly state that looking after his captain was in his job description as well, especially when the Torchwood medic was busy elsewhere or had deemed the official carer presence necessary for his patient's wellbeing. That said, he dutifully went back to work, leaving Jack to brood alone until he sorted himself out: when Jack was ready to talk to him again, he knew where to find him.

Going back to work in the hub, though, meant that Ianto had to give back his daughter to the Doctor, who, as soon as he saw him defiantly cross the TARDIS threshold to hand over the kid, appeared to be a bit too smug for the Welshman's likings.

Swallowing down a bit retort, Ianto left quickly the Doctor's place to give back his attention to the small little things that made the hub work properly and set it back into motion: each time he missed his duties for any amount of time, he couldn't stop wondering how Jack had dared to say they didn't need a general-support officer in the team, while he was stalking him for a job almost two years before.

Jack, in the meantime, had gotten Martha and the Doctor to follow him, but their talk about random things and previous adventures together was accepted by his friends enough only while he showed them the base, because, as soon as they were alone in Jack's office, the Time Lord didn't waste any time before asking some questions of his own.

It was true that he didn't trust Ianto, but, as the Welshman had quietly pointed out, he didn't trust Jack either.

"You turned down the boy before." He noted curiously, as Jack's and Martha's laughter were subsiding after a joke the captain had told them about the current case Torchwood and UNIT were supposed to be working on together. "Share with the class?"

Jack frowned and shrugged as he sat back on his chair, looking everywhere that wasn't the Doctor, who was still holding his daughter to his chest, a very real reminder of his own negligence in dealing with his feelings and their consequences.

"I might not have handled it well." He admitted eventually. "It wasn't his fault: his job is to take care about us and our necessities. Moreover I had promised him he could take the child after Martha got here, so his conduct is unquestionable. I was the one out of line, since I took my anger out on him"

Martha stared at Jack, sincerely sad for her friend seeing him so subdued, and once again wondered about the relationship between him and the man in a suit. Relationship that Jack still wasn't willing to talk about.

"Had it something to do with your _visions_ or with your latest domestic?" The Doctor asked, offering him a frown of his own. "Because depending on which it is, I might want to know or be kept in the darkness"

Jack simply growled at those words and sank lower in his chair, a tiny hint of pink ghosting over his cheeks.

"The previous domestic ended well… A bit too well, actually, I knew that something had to happen to counterbalance the results and prove that once again I'm unable to sort myself for the better"

"What domestic?" Martha asked softly, trying to follow their argument without much success.

"Don't worry, Martha" Jack told her, trying to offer her a smile that, sadly, didn't reach his eyes at all. "It's the child thing I was telling you about before: I'm not dealing with it very well and Ianto is stubborn when he puts his mind into something"

"So… It's you and Ianto, then" She teased, raising a teasing eyebrow in his direction. "Ianto is her other parent and… your boyfriend?"

"Gossip later!" The Doctor interrupted loudly, making both Martha and Jack giggle at his clear annoyance. He ignored them, and tried to bring the discussion back on track.

"Was that related to what you've seen about your future, then?" he Doctor moved on, pointing to the child in his arms to be certain Jack understood about what particular future he was referring to.

"Yep" Jack admitted quietly, his stare brushing only slightly over his daughter before looking once again at nothing in particular. "I saw my life after Ianto's death… Knowing that I was going to become so dependent on him hurt quite a bit, even though I can't say it was unexpected"

"Well, he obviously cares about you" Martha said, offering him an encouraging smile and earning Jack's attention on her. "He was all keen on protecting you when I got here, and then he had no fear to challenge the Doctor in order to keep the child. Even though I happened to be on his bad side at first, I can't say he left a bad impression on me"

"He's a great guy" Jack offered, a little embarrassed by her words but more than a little proud that his lover had left such a good impression on Martha. "And I care a lot about him too"

"Can you _really_ say that after what I showed you?" The Doctor argued, more surprised than angry. "After what you've seen?"

"Of course I can" Jack answered, without losing any second to think about it. "I trust my Ianto far beyond what would be sane to trust him after our past arguments"

"That's exactly my point" The Doctor pointed out tiredly.

"I don't know why you are so keen seeing only the bad side of things." Martha butted in, taking her chance to get the sleeping child from the Time Lord's arms to cuddle her a bit. "You know, I thought you couldn't get any worse than your last incarnation"

The Doctor stared at her as she'd grown another head, almost not realizing her stealth move to successfully get the baby from him.

"Please, don't say that again! I'm absolutely not like _him_ despite _him_ and _me_ being the same person!" He protested vehemently, pouting and crossing his arms on his chest. "I don't know if you do understand what was at stake here: their games stranded me here on 21st century Earth, moved around most of my knowledge and hurt my TARDIS! I do have the right to keep an eye on the culprit. I don't like not having the chance to run when I want to."

"We know, but this is happening because of the _future_. You're acting like _this_ Ianto will throw himself in the time vortex just to become immortal and poke your ribs. That's no humanly possible" She pointed out, earning the Doctor's distrustful stare on her as she decided to completely ignore his glare to poke the cute little nose of Jack's daughter.

"Oh, and why's that, then?"

"Because…" Jack tried to explain, but no matter how much he tried to fight the lump blocking his throat, he couldn't manage to go forwards in his explanation of Martha's words.

She sighed, understanding Jack's pain as much as she realized that the Doctor needed to have the facts spelt out clearly to him.

"Because he would have to die first" Martha finished in Jack's place with a sad smile on her lips, stopping to fuss over the child in her arms to glance sideways at Jack, who could only nod at her as he tried to not think too much at what had destroyed him in that future.

Her statement was followed by thick silence, as the meaning of her words finally dawned on the Doctor. Not being human, dying wasn't something he thought too much about and, as a matter of fact, he tried to avert the discussion altogether if he could. Honestly, even if he couldn't or wasn't supposed to, he tried his best to not confront himself with death anyway, especially when involved people he cared about.

For Jack and Martha however, as much as for Jack's lover, things were quite different since the truth for every one of them was always the same: death was painful and scary. His previous incarnation had shared their same human fear, and this had brought him near to his own madness in the end; that's why he had made a point to himself to eradicate that kind of empathy once again. Being too human hurt too much.

The Doctor however could chose his fear to not be embedded in his DNA since he knew that he would have other chance at life, he could chose to run away -or at least try to run away- from it when involved his friends, but for humans it different. It was their life that was about to end and, as soon as they realised it, it was the raw instinct for self preservation that kicked in. Even the bravest of them would be scared deep inside himself at the final moment, and only a grand emotion would have made him make the last step to cross the boundaries of human nature.

Love, friendship, honour; egoism, mischief, hate. All of them had been proven to be enough of a reason to die for, and depending on which one it was, the Doctor could even be willing to forgive Ianto, if that was where they were heading to, but that was the place where stood the ultimate question.

What would make Jack's lover cross the line?

Eventually, both the silence and the Doctor's thoughts were interrupted by Ianto's soft knock at the door. As he brought himself forward to deliver their coffees, the Welshman noticed the awkward glances directed at him from the entire group of friends, and correctly guessed to have been the main subject in one of their arguments.

Far from him hoping that Jack would have told Martha about them, certainly it was something case or hub related.

He sent a furtive glance at Jack as he laid his mug of coffee on the desk, but his captain said nothing to him and just looked elsewhere, slightly embarrassed.

Trying to ignore the hurt at being kept in the darkness by Jack, who usually filled him on everything new in the hub as soon as they could talk with one another, Ianto left them fast and went to deliver the last mug of coffee he had prepared.

Gwen and Owen still weren't back from their meeting with the head of F.A.R.M., so the only other person wishing for coffee, except for himself, was Toshiko, who was still trying to find a way to breach through the Institute security system.

As soon as he had delivered Toshiko her coffee and shared few courtesy words with her, Ianto went back to the kitchenette, passing by his open station on his way. His eyes caught the photo of the man Gwen and Owen went to interrogate, Doctor Copley, and an unhealthy wave of what he could only call disgust washed over him despite himself.

As he hastened to the kitchenette, he stubbornly denied that his great dislike for a man he hadn't even met was caused by Jack's behaviour. No, it wasn't because his lover, right after dismissing his care for him as '_unprofessional_' had spent a good hour complaining with his friends about not having had the chance to meet a man so charming. And it wasn't obviously because it all happened right after Martha had summed up to him what she and Owen had discovered while he had been asleep and asked him for his opinion on the matter.

Truth was that, in a normal situation, Jack would have been the one to go and question the suspect, being he not only the head of Torchwood, but also a man very few people ever managed to say no to. However, since he had been still asleep because of the sedatives, Jack lost his chance to meet _him_, Doctor Copley, who was not only head of the FARM, but also Owen's old medical idol and the main suspect for all those deaths they were trying to work on.

Ianto was all but displeased by how things had turned out.

After settling things in order inside the kitchenette, Ianto found himself not knowing what to do, however. The hub was once again functional and the coffee delivered, but even though he had overheard the updates Martha had been telling Jack, not having had a full debriefing on the updated situation was actually at a loss.

Ianto knew that he could have asked Toshiko for more information and details, but he also realised that his friend would have used the chance to ask him about his personal situation with Jack, and he had no real will to talk about it at the moment.

Only when Gwen and Owen came back enraged but with no news at all, Ianto was finally called back from the background to put his brain to good use, something that he enjoyed way more than should considering his job description. Brain storming over a case was one of the only few moments in which his teammates' attention actually shifted to him: usually the others were too focused on the small details to see things from a different approach, and Ianto always had his time to shine pointing out what that for him was the obvious.

Somehow he knew that this time wouldn't happen any different.

To prove him right, after the much needed debriefing, his suggestion to look up whether the FARM was in the market for volunteers or not was accepted by everyone like a stroke of genius.

Ianto and Toshiko together quickly managed to even find a couple of their announcements on the most obvious websites, much to the Doctor's surprise. The Time Lord was in fact willing to bet that if you had such a high number of deaths amongst the patients the voice would have eventually spread, but Ianto and the rest of Torchwood proved him that money and hope to be able to heal from incurable illnesses paid more than self preservation.

Jack decided that now they only needed a Trojan horse disguised as guinea pig to infiltrate the F.A.R.M., but when it was time to vote who to send, things proved to be harder than what he had thought.

Martha was the most logical choice, being her both a medic and a new face in town, but the Doctor simply would have none of it. He stomped his feet against the proposal, and eventually he found an unwilling back up in Jack, who had to admit that, after all the help she'd given them in the past, it wasn't nice calling her here in Cardiff only to put her in danger.

Martha didn't share their same concerns, however, and eventually Jack had to admit that he knew that she could handle herself better than anyone else _thanks to_ her experience with the Doctor.

Seeing Jack caught like a deer in the headlights between his own friends' fight, Ianto kindly decided to put his lover out of his misery and offered himself as her backup, hoping to make both Martha and the Doctor happy.

It wasn't much of a consolation for the Welshman seeing Jack's blood drain from his face as soon as he had finished speaking.

Jack's first reaction was to firmly refuse his proposition, saying that he was still new to this sort of dangers, since he was still more an admin than a field agent, and then that it was just plainly dangerous, especially considering all his fussing about raising their daughter despite working for Torchwood.

After tons of reassurances about his abilities from Ianto as well as from the rest of the team, eventually Jack had to give up, especially since, as the Welshman had honestly point out, there was no actual reason to be willing to send UNIT newbie, but not full- fledged agents with five years of Torchwood experience if he considered both One and Three.

This still didn't mean that Jack was willing to accept Ianto risking his life even sooner than what had happened in that other future, so to cut the debating short he put himself in the guinea pigs' group too.

A surprised silence met his decision, and it ended only when eventually Jack ordered Ianto to prepare their three fake identities and to everyone else to go back to their work, before storming out of the room with Gwen in tow.

The Doctor, despite being quite amused by Jack's reaction to a perfectly logical proposal, decided to leave him to his female underling and took Owen and Toshiko to one of the computers in the main hub in order to check their equipment and maybe sonic-screwdrive a couple of things for good measure.

He still cared a deep deal about Martha and, even though Jack was wrong and immortal, he didn't wish for him to suffer without a reason either. If in the meanwhile he managed to protect also Jack's boyfriend, well, Jack surely wouldn't be the one to complain.

Ianto was therefore left alone in the meeting room with Martha, and felt quickly conscious of the harsh words he had told her as a way of greeting the day before. He offered her an apologetic smile, and then he led her to his computer station to make her see how his work would be progressing.

During their short trip to his station and during the actual making of the documents and cards they would need, he kept distracting her with the details of her fake identities, hoping to show a nicer side of himself.

As soon as he let the silence fall once again between them though, the tension came back between them. After some awkward moment in which none of them knew how to face the situation about their first meeting, Martha decided they had better not confront about it at all, and took gladly advantage of their isolation from the others for some good gossip from the person who had –to a certain extent- made a honest man out of Jack Harkness.

"So… Jack asked me for a UNIT cap to wear."

Ianto tried to keep his composure intact, nevertheless a small smile crept on his face at the thought that Jack must have not been all that angry at him anymore if he was already thinking about their next time together.

"Did he?" He asked tentatively, glancing at Martha right in time to see her nodding. "Well… Red is my colour" He finished, stuttering embarrassed.

Despite his will to prove his professionalism to Martha, he couldn't deny the warm feeling spreading all over him, knowing that Jack had actually talked about him –or about things that included him- with one of his dearest friends.

"So… You really are a couple. I saw you holding close together when Gwen brought me inside the hub, but when I asked Jack for details he wasn't much forward except asking for pieces of our uniform"

Ianto pretended to focus on what he was typing, but the topic Martha had offered was overly distracting as well as extremely complicated to answer to.

"We… dabble" He said eventually, not happy about naming their _thing_ this way, now that he knew that they could already be much more than that.

"Ianto, honestly, that didn't look like just dabbling, when you play you're not that committed to one another." Martha pointed out, closing the space between the two of them confidentially. "Jack pulled quite a stunt after you offered to back me up, and you, that Jack described as the most profession of the men wouldn't put him before your duties that easily. You must have realised the way you stare at one another…"

"Taking care of my captain is in my job description, and… Well, it's good dabbling." Ianto improvised quickly. "Innovative. Bordering on the avant-garde."

Martha's eyebrows shot up, extremely interested in the subject, even though she tried her best to not make her curiosity about Jack's prowess too evident to the man's lover. However, the small shift on his chair Ianto did at the mere thought of what was only vaguely describing made her quite sure that Jack's reputation could really live up to her expectations.

"Now" Ianto told her professionally, as he stood up and made his way to the nearby printer. "If you would follow me, your documents should be ready in a minute, Miss Samantha."

"I like it" Martha chirped happily, following him at close distance.

"I kept Jones as your surname" He teased, turning to smirk challengingly at her. "I guessed that wouldn't be a problem"

Martha answered his smirk with one of hers and then, as soon as noticed the other set of documents leaving the alien printer, she got closer to him to spy on them. "What will your names be?"

"Ifan and Jack Jones. I took quite a few liberties." Ianto offered with a wink, smirking even more evilly than before as he hid the papers and cards for him and Jack from Martha with a swift move. "Married couple. Needing money to get through adoption bureaucracy"

If this didn't get him fired on the spot, Ianto had to admit, his work life in Torchwood would definitively be _until death do us part_.

Martha, however, didn't share his same concerns about his choice, and shoved friendly his shoulder. "See? This most definitely makes you a couple."

"This will most definitely make you in trouble Ianto Jones" Jack pointed out, appearing behind them and making the Jones couple freeze guiltily on the spot. "Or should I call you Ifan, dear?"

As soon as she deemed safe to move, Martha awkwardly smiled at Jack and quickly excused herself to leave them alone to solve their issues. Ianto, however, just swallowed thickly and slowly turned to stare at his lover, trying to sound more flirty than guilty.

"What kind of trouble?"

"Well" Jack told him seductively as he grabbed Ianto's shoulders and led him closer. "I could ask for the honeymoon, since apparently I got married without knowing and didn't get one. There can't be a marriage without the best part of it. Think about it: what would you deem necessary between a ceremony with tons of paper to sign, and a week spent entirely inside one single room, having sex all the day, in every way you like?"

"I don't really think that's how honeymoons are usually supposed to work" Ianto protested without much conviction as his eyes lowered to not stare at Jack's. "I think they are supposed to be about getting comfortable with your partner, mould you lives together, your dreams and your different habits"

"Would you complain about it though?" Jack asked rhetorically.

Ianto swallowed and his eyes slowly moved up again to look at his lover's body appreciatively before eventually finishing his trip staring at his lips. "No, actually"

Jack smirked, satisfied with the reaction he was getting, and let his hand trail languidly on Ianto's side. "We could look into something like that after everything is over. I think we'll need some time to ourselves to relax… We're having too many self appointed nannies here lately, and I always liked small families"

"I, well…" Ianto took his chance to note. "You're not angry?"

"Why should I be?" Jack laughed merrily "We have even a kid together."

"But I thought-"

"Stop thinking for a while there." Jack murmured in his hear, taking his chance to leave not so innocent kisses down his neck. "I've been completely unfair with you today, both times, but… Well, I saw my life after your death during those flashback or flash-forwards or whatever. When I woke up I was angry at myself, not at you… And then with Martha and the Doctor, the things we talked about... Let's say that they didn't help me to snap out of that nightmare, and eventually the last boast happened. Gwen even gave me an earful for taking it out on you."

That made Ianto's eyes shot up to stare at Jack's eyes to be certain that the man wasn't having him on. He also put some space between them to get out of those bloody strong pheromones and keep a cool head.

"Gwen?" Ianto asked surprised, eliciting a small laugh from Jack for it.

"Yeah, she said that I'm not a three years old anymore" Jack explained embarrassedly. "And I should know better than behaving like one when things are a little more complicated."

"It seemed strange that she had stood up for me." Ianto snorted, crossing his arms on his chest. "That's more her being upset at us fighting in front of our guests"

"Not at all" Jack pointed out quietly "She said that since it was pretty obvious who I liked, I should get out of the closet and live my relationship in the open air. Preferences included."

Ianto loved Gwen, and, if he stopped thinking for a while about her inability to realise the damages she could do simply speaking her mind, he had to admit that she wasn't bad at reading people. Obviously whenever her feelings didn't dictate her decisions or hindered her point of view.

"Was she right?" Ianto asked eventually.

"I don't know" Jack admitted with a loud sigh. "Everything is moving forward too quick and my life is too long to make harsh decisions I could regret"

"My life isn't that long though" Ianto's voice was barely a whisper, but Jack head it nevertheless.

"Yeah, I saw that. And also saw what it will mean to me" Jack confessed. He held Ianto tight to himself and hid his face in the crook of his neck, trying to erase those images from his mind. "And I'm not quite sure that I can stop what I saw happening, no matter the place or the time… not even if you will turn out immortal. You will have to die, Ianto, and I'll live all that again. Die on me, die for me… You will leave me because of that, and-"

"I won't" Ianto interrupted him brusquely, determination blazing in his clear eyes. "And _you_ are the one thinking too much at the moment"

"In my experience-"

"Your experience wasn't about me"

Jack chuckled at Ianto's inflexible retorts and, burying once again his nose on his lover's neck, he let the familiar smell of his aftershave lull him into security.

"Stubborn like always. I like that in a lover… Even though I do wonder what your stubbornness will bring us one day."

Ianto was tempted to say that certainly it would always bring him to Jack, but it seemed way too cheesy for them, so he simply stood there, enjoying the warmth Jack was offering him and hoping to be doing the right thing trusting both himself and Jack in that far future.

**X**

"_So, is everyone ready?_" Gwen typed to the three supposed future guinea pigs as they blinked a couple of times to adjust better to the camera lenses.

She saw them nodding and was glad that everything seemed to work just fine. She could see the plain waiting room in which they seated from their three different points of view on the monitor of her computer and had at her hand four different small keyboards, one for each of her friends, plus another one to communicate with all the three of them at the same time. The first thing she had asked Toshiko for, as on as she had explained what their task would have been, was to have each of them of a different colour and a small legend for the matches on a post it.

Toshiko was next to her to help coordinating, while Owen watched them curiously over their shoulders along with the Doctor, both of them hoping to not be needed as backup.

One after the other, Martha, Ianto and Jack were called inside some sort of infirmary for a first physical check up and an interview with the infamous doctor Copley.

Ianto took a deep breath of relief when the nurse asked him if he wished to take his interview with his partner. Jack didn't quite understand his lover's reaction to the nurse proposition, but Ianto received a typed message by Gwen stating '_Thank God. Good luck_' as private support.

To prove them right, the Welshman passed half of Jack's side of their interview to damp his lover's fluent flirting towards the head of the F.A.R.M., much to amusement f he doctor, who eventually decided to give them a try.

After what they had discovered about his way to select people thanks to Martha, Ianto came to the unpleasant conclusion that doctor Copley had accepted them only because he thought that Jack slept around quite a bit, bringing with him delicious new sexual diseases he could test his medicaments on.

Thanks to that and a decent number of lies that they hoped couldn't be proven wrong, all the three of them were successfully admitted and nicely arranged in three adjoining chambers. They dutifully waited for the night to fall before coming out of their rooms to explore the building.

Their mission was supposed to be quite easy once gotten inside: steal the information Toshiko needed and the day after fake some emergency, promising to be back before noon.

The first part was easily managed thanks to Toshiko's expert guide though the institute internal servers, but after their complete success, Jack had to work hart in order to keep Martha away from eventual dangers.

She complained that another chance to see with their eyes what the hell they were doing with those alien insects they thought were responsible for the deaths wasn't going to come back any other time soon. Jack rolled his eyes at her explanation, admitting –as fellow former Doctor's companion- that she had a point. Ianto rolled his eyes at the both of them and cursed his bloody luck that always provided him with new danger-loving comrade to care for.

He wasn't paid enough for this, and he was paid a lot.

Regrettably, their exploration of the institute didn't last much. Through the windows, they saw an enormous mosquito that obviously was the answer to Martha's curiosity about the evolution of the infamous alien insects she and Owen had been obsessed by since their last trip together to question the only surviving test subject of the F.A.R.M., the one who finally gave them a lead for the deaths they were working on.

A little scared and disgusted by what they had seen, they decided to not test their luck more than that, and tried to rush back towards their rooms. Unfortunately they soon found themselves in front of doctor Copley and two nurses, who kept staring at them reproachfully.

"I thought I told you not to move from your rooms" The old man said.

"We heard the commotion outside, actually. Got curious" Ianto offered with a nervous smile. "Looks like you've a problem with pests, I could suggest good products to get rid of them"

"You're quite right about pests, Mister Jones. Still, I beg to differ on what kind of pests we are supposed to deal with. I can assure you that for these particular pests, we're already well armed"

Jack and Ianto put instinctively a hand at their side, where they usually kept their guns, only to remember they hadn't been allowed to bring weapons with them. They moved to retreat, but one of the nurses already had a small remote in her hand and, as soon as she pressed down the red button on it, a shower of sweet smelling vapour engulfed them, pouring from above.

"Don't breathe!" Jack managed to warn them, as he grabbed their arms to shove them out of the pink steam, but before then the nurse had already activated also the other showers of the corridor behind them and they had already breathed in too much vapour.

Before they could make it any further, all the three of them fell on the floor unmoving, as sleep claiming them faster that they thought possible.

When they finally regained consciousness, they found themselves tied up on an uncomfortable medical bed, while doctor Copley smiled cryptically at them accompanied by one of the omnipresent nurses.

Jack checked quickly at his left and at his right to reassure himself that Ianto and Martha were fine as well, and then he moved his glare to the handsome old man, addressing him with irritation mixed with contempt.

"Is this the way F.A.R.M. treats its test subjects?"

"You and the young girl have a peculiar immune system, _my dear Jack_" The doctor told him amused, ignoring his question altogether. "Such a peculiar immune system is typical of people who travelled across space… Even time maybe."

Both Jack and Martha cringed at his words, their wrists testing the laces they were tightened with, unconsciously trying to protect themselves.

"What do you want to do with us!?" Jack asked plainly, realizing that they were running on a thin layer of ice with a mad scientist knowing about the peculiarities of their bodies. The risks were high for all the three of them: Ianto could be discarded as useless, and he and Martha could end up as actual guinea pigs. Painful torture before a slow death would be waiting for his friend and endless torture would be in store for him.

"We never managed to get the eggs to the last stage of their evolution" Doctor Copley explained quietly, smirking approvingly seeing Jack so compliant. "With such interesting tests in our hands, we absolutely need to make at least an attempt at perfection."

He signalled to a nurse to come forwards and she promptly followed his order, reaching out to take a big syringe in her hands filled with white thick liquid. The concoction with the alien eggs to breed the alien mosquito larvae.

"No! Stop!" Jack cried in panic as he saw the nurse move further and approach Martha. "Leave her alone, try it with me! You just need one test, make your experiment on me! You don't need to use her too!"

Jack pulled once again at his restraining unsuccessfully and then he tried to wriggle himself free to rescue his friend, who was staring panicked at the syringe, her pretty dark skin turning a dead shade of gray.

The doctor indulgently stared for a moment at Jack's attempts to wrestle himself free and then approached the captain, far enough to not be grabbed by his test but near enough to make Jack focus on him.

"Oh well, in the dire case of you both dying on us" He told Jack plainly, almost professionally "We would like a comparative experimentation."

"I beg you, don't do that to her!" Jack pleaded again, as he tried to sit up to stare at the old man in the eye. "How can you do this to a girl so young!?"

Doctor Copley granted him a snort, obviously used to not take age into account when dealing with test subjects he deemed useful, and signalled the nurse once again to go forward with their plan.

"What if something goes wrong and Jack dies!" Ianto butted in, grief showing in both his eyes and voice, making everyone staring at him. "What if with his death you understand where the problem is!? You will be left without volunteers, you said yourself that their immune system is rare!"

Jack's questioning stare on him slowly turned in a softer one, as he realised how, despite his desire to spare him another death, Ianto was trying to back him up. After all, Jack would survive everything, Martha wouldn't, no matter how much his death would hurt both Jack and Ianto.

The lenses they had been wearing felt damaged on his eyes, but Jack was sure that they were still working good enough to alarm their teammates and get them here. It was just a matter of buying them time, and they would also have plenty of proof to close down this bloody Research Institute.

He was glad that Ianto was there to support him, and even more that now there was a new light of doubt in Copley's eyes as well as in the ones of his assistant.

"He's right" The nurse told the doctor eventually, sounding a bit confused.

"Alright then" Copley said irritably, and hastily motioned for the nurse to move to Jack.

Both Ianto and Martha stared in horror as the thick liquid was injected to Jack, their heart breaking as the annoyed groan of disappointment at being stabbed with a needle way too soon became a pained whimper.

"What is it doing to him!?" Ianto demanded, not daring to tear his eyes away from his visibly ill lover. "What does this mean!?"

"It completely bypassed the healing stage" Copley noted, fascinated by each and every sign of discomfort appearing on Jack's face. "It looks like they had no need to clean the body at all"

Ianto mouthed a silent 'Fuck' as he realised that each time Jack died his body automatically set back to its factory settings: the alien eggs had nothing better to ask. As to prove his guesses right, Jack's forehead was turning slowly damper with sweat, his hands clenched in fists grasped the lined on the bed, whilst his eyes shut closed in pain.

"Jack" Ianto whispered horrified as the doctor's curious stare moved slightly to him.

"So there was something true in all those lies" He noted surprised. "He has no qualms flirting with others in front of you and you offered him up for this experiment… I was right thinking that you were more than a little strange as a couple"

Ianto glared at the old man in contempt, and then focused back on his lover as he wriggled in pain any second more, until he ached so much that he could barely contain a cry. All the while, the nurse on the background was only praising the success of their experiment and foretelling the beginning of a new phase of research and future awards for her principal.

Ianto had to snort at the pathetic scene between nurse and doctor: if Jack and himself were a strange couple, what kind of medics were they? At least their problems were just theirs and didn't try to kill innocents in the middle.

The nurse praises, however, had the positive effect to move Copley's attention back to Jack, leaving Ianto free to quickly scan his surroundings for something useful: if the eggs had already turned larvae, then they had much less time than what he had thought before Jack ended up dead. Martha would follow soon after, and that was something he had to stop no matter what: they couldn't waste any more time waiting for reinforcements. Speaking of which, what the fuck were they doing at the hub!?

A small scalpel laying forgotten not much far from him caught his attention, but reaching it with his hands tied seemed an almost impossible task to achieve, so he focused back to his tidings, as he desperately tried to free at least one hand. He pulled a couple of times with all the strength and determination he had, hoping to make it slide outside the bindings.

Ianto had always been bullied for his long fingered and graceful hands, but if he had to endure all that teasing in his youth –and currently at the hub because of Owen- for successfully escape now and save Jack and Martha, he would surely deem all that worth it.

The hard leather scratched his skin and broke it in several points, coating his wrists in slippery red liquid as the tiny droplets of blood, which stood out remarkably on his pale skin, ended up spread behind the bindings. Ianto focused on Jack's suffering whimpers to find in himself enough strength to keep pulling despite the dull pain of the scratches and stubborn resistance of the tidings.

Eventually the blood gave his wrists the small wetness they lacked of to finally get one hand free. He stole a quick glance at doctor Copley and at nurse to reassure himself that they were still distracted by Jack to stretch enough to get the scalpel safely in his hands.

Silently yet quickly, he broke open his bindings, just in time before the old man noticed him.

As he turned towards Ianto, the Welshman punched him hard, breaking his lower lip and making him loose his consciousness, then, despite considering himself a gentleman, threatened the nurse with the scalpel, making her flee outside the laboratory terrified.

Gone the mad scientists, he was finally free to focus back on Jack, even though he had no real idea about what to do for him: he was wriggling in pain now, and Ianto could see something moving beneath the skin of his abdomen, threatening to get out.

He gathered his courage to leave Jack for a while, and kissed his damp forehead before moving to Martha to free her from her bindings.

"Martha, any suggestion?" Despite his attempt to sound detached, he himself could hear the sheer panic in his voice.

"No idea, I'm sorry! Owen and I never managed to find a way to put the aliens out of the body" She admitted, looking herself at Jack. "The alien. Oh God, they ate each other!? Ianto, why the others aren't they coming?"

Ianto bit his lower lip and helped Martha on her feet, shooing her towards the exit.

"They mustn't be too far. Try to get out of here, find them or call UNIT or whoever can help us and bring them here"

"What about you and Jack?" She asked worried, pointing her feet to make some kind of resistance to Ianto's pushing.

"We would hinder your escape and I can't leave Jack, not when he's dying. No matter if he will come back" He tried to offer her a small smile. "Moreover, until one of their test subjects is here, you won't be necessary, they won't search for you right away"

"Ianto, here's no safe!" Martha tried to reason with the stubborn Welshman. "What if the nurse gets back with help and they start experimenting on you?"

"I'm not useful for them. Now, there's a breach in the fence near the big gate we passed to enter the clinic. Go!" Ianto commanded, ignoring her complaints.

Martha wanted to keep protesting, but Ianto's determined glare didn't leave her any chance to win the argument, so she eventually nodded and rushed away, hoping to be back in time to get the Welshman alive. If something were to happen to him, no matter how Jack tried stubbornly to deny wanting Ianto immortal, having the Welshman back would be next on his agenda, world be screwed.

As soon as Martha was out, Ianto could finally focus back on his lover, and try desperately to soothe his pain.

"C'mon, Jack, it's just a parasite, you can beat it" He murmured, inadvertently dirtying Jack's shirt with the blood still smearing his wrists.

The beast inside Jack kept moving, and in the few long minutes Ianto made himself to stare at it, he could swear that in was becoming bigger by the second. Each time it moved it seemed always more likely to break through, twisting and turning amongst Jack's organs any time nearer to the outer skin.

Jack's pained cries had reached a so high pitched level that Ianto felt the strength leaving his body despite his best efforts to stay focused and alert. He stared horrified at the scene, with Jack's hand in his, as he tried to sooth his searing pain with his own constant presence and hopeful words.

He was so focused on Jack's worsening conditions, that he didn't even notice doctor Copley regaining consciousness behind him.

The furious medic looked quickly around himself to find a weapon for getting rid of the man who had made his other test subject escape. Eventually his eyes fell on the second syringe they had already readied for the escaped brunette.

He stood up slowly and moved silently his hand to his side, until he managed to clench his fingers around the plunger full of soon-to-be-mosquitoes. As he readied himself to stab Ianto with the needle, he let out a small noise who made the Welshman turn abruptly to stop the risen arm before he could dawn on him.

Doctor Copley, however, threw him out of balance, showing him off with his shoulder and making Ianto fall backwards, and he dropped the scalpel not far from him. Despite the age, the old man was soon over him and they struggled and wrestled on the cold flood: the doctor trying to inject the eggs inside Ianto, Ianto trying to stretch enough to reach the only weapon he had gotten himself without getting stabbed with the needle in the meantime.

A louder cry of pain from Jack made Ianto try his last and desperate solution: he pushed the doctor away from him with his elbow to finally get the scalpel back. Before Copley could see it coming, Ianto hit him right in the heart, the doctor's blood sprinkling out of his chest like hot springs. It killed him almost instantly as the blood kept flowing fluently from the breached chest, falling on both Ianto and the floor, and dampening everything it fell on with warm coppery moisture. His eyes soon turned white and the body fell boneless on the floor as the remaining blood now flowed out of the breach in his chest without all its initial pressure.

Still Ianto hadn't been quick enough, and had to note with dread the empty syringe now resting in the doctor's lax hands.

Ianto knew that his and Jack's deaths were now only a matter of time and tried to keep his blood as cold as he could to think clear. The first thing he did was to move Copley's body far from Jack's bed outside the room, just in case the man wasn't so dead as he appeared to be, and in doing so he smeared himself and the floor even more with the medic's blood.

After that, he closed shut the door, to buy Jack enough time to die and come back to life if their reinforcements weren't quick to come to his rescue. When he was certain that enough things were to be destroyed before they got the Torchwood captain, he allowed himself to go back to his lover's side.

The situation seemed the same as the last time he had seen it, but that worried Ianto more than Jack's death would have. For Jack to be still in such situation when he had been teetering for a long time to the brick of death, it meant that his body was partially fighting off the invasion inside his body, partially healing him as he got hurt, and making the torture longer.

Ianto tried to dry the excess of sweat from his forehead and then, seeing as it was a hopeless case, he held him tight at his waist, whishing his continued pangs of pain to stop. Then he eventually started feeling ill himself.

It had been apparently a massive dose of concoction, because Ianto had only enough time to break their embrace before searing pain crossed his whole body too. He tried to keep the spasms in check whishing them away, and stoically kept caressing Jack's head and whisper soothing words to him to calm him down.

Jack still wriggled and cried, testing the resistance of his bindings as he tried desperately to free himself. Ianto debated if there was any chance for his lover to hurt himself more once free, but the pained whimper escaping Jack's lips was enough to make him decide to grant him his wish.

He searched around himself for something to free Jack with, and then he remembered the scalpel, still lying forgotten on the bloodied floor after serving his purpose. Ianto made quick work of the leather and, as soon as Jack was free from the bindings, was ready to catch his lover, as he desperately gripped his shirt.

"You're fine… You'll be fine…" Ianto repeated like a mantra, holding Jack tight to himself and hoping for someone to come and take care of Jack before his body gave out.

After a louder cry, in front of Ianto's horrified stare, an enormous alien mosquito eventually breached through Jack, splashing the Welshman with his lover's blood and flesh. Ianto's heart stopped in his chest at the sight, but he had just enough time to mutter a small "I'm sorry" before a spasm stronger than the previous ones sent him on the floor, bent over his knees.

Ianto tried to stand up again, but his every muscle seemed unwilling to move to his wishes and, when he tried to grasp Jack's bed as support, his hand slipped on the cold metal, damp with his lover's blood, still dripping down from the open wound.

He felt tiny little things moving inside himself, through his veins, breaching his flesh as if creating small tunnels. He was dying, dying close to Jack, but without the chance to say goodbye to him, to say he loved him.

He couldn't die without Jack knowing he had loved him.

Ianto put all the strength he had left on his legs and managed to stand, despite the illness and despite the pain. He found himself coughing violently and his legs gave away, but not before he could lean over Jack's tore apart body. He grasped the railings of the small bed and as soon as he was able to stop coughing moved forward for a last kiss.

"I love you, Jack" He whispered.

Then his hands slipped, and everything blacked out.

**TBC**


End file.
